'l!'i 



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AN-HOIJR^ 



A-BOOK-FOR 

THE-BLESSED 
SACRAMENT 



BY 'FRANC. . 
DONNELl 



i 




Class 7?X?/? rc 

Book_^ ',lJ u'^ 

Cof^Tiglit N° 



COPtKIGKT DEFOeir. 



WATCHING AN HOUR 



WATCHING AN 
HOUR 

A Book for the Blessed Sacrament 
FRANCIS P; DONNELLY, S.J. 

AtTTHOR OF THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL AND THE 
HEART OF REVELATION 



NEW YORK 

P. J. KENEDY & SONS 

1914 



# 






COPYRIGHT, I914 
BY P. J. KENEDY & SONS 



APR 25 1914 



THB* PLIMPTON* PRBSS 
NORWOOD* MASS* U*S*A 

©CI.A3 6 98r)8 



^ 



\ 



Impximi pott fit t 

ANTONIUS MAAS, S.J., 
Praepositus Prov» Marylandiae NeO'Eboracensis 

/fd{|)ilob0tat: 

REMIGIUS LAFORT, S.T.D., 

Censor 

Imprimatur: 

'h JOANNES CARDINALIS FARLEY, 

Arcbiepiscopus Neo-Eboracensis 

Neo-Eboraci, 
Die i8 Fe6., 1914 



TO THE MANY MEMBERS 
OF THE 

EUCHARISTIC PROPAGANDA 

WHO, HEARKENING TO THE WORDS OF JESUS 

"could you not WATCH ONE HOUR WITH ME?" 

COME TO ADORE AND PRAY BEFORE HIS TABERNACLE 

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 

IN THE EARNEST HOPE 

THAT THEIR NUMBERS MAY INCREASE 

THAT THEIR VISITS MAY MULTIPLY MORE AND MORE 

AND THEIR HOURS OF ADORATION MAY GROW EVER IN 

FAITH AND FERVOR 



CONTENTS 



Note to the Reader . . . 
Sleeping, Watching and Waking 
Father, Mother and Chiij> . 
Water, Wine and Oil . 
Wolf, Lion and Lamb . 
Home, School and Church . 
Reading, Writing and Counting 
Grass, Reeds and Thorns 
Foxes, Dogs and Swine 
Birth, Marriage and Death . 
Foundation, Door and Housetop 
Plow, Oxen and Yoke. 
Bottles, Baskets and Cups . 
Morning, Noon and Night . 
Ears, Eyes and Tongue . 
Tears, Atonement and Love 
Youth, Maturity and Age 



PAGB 

xi 

3 

18 

S3 

46 

62 

76 

91 

103 

118 

134 

150 

162 

177 

189 

204 

217 



IL 



APPENDIX 

The Nature of the Holy Hour 

AND Its Indulgences . . . 235 

Order of Exercises for the Holy 

Hour 240 



NOTE TO THE READER 

HE following thoughts have been 
written to supply fresh material for 
prayer and meditation before the 
Blessed Sacrament One of these 
chapters has appeared before in print j 
and its wide circulation^ due to the 
kindness of friends, was one motive 
which induced the writer to put to- 
gether other like meditations. With 
the conception of one other chapter re- 
cently printed, the book is entirely new. 
The spread of Communion, the prac- 
tice of the Holy Hour, the frequency of 
E apposition and Adoration of our hid- 
den Lord, the long and repeated Visits, 
which have been so wonderfully stimu- 
lated by the Eucharistic Propaganda, 
and many other religious services con- 
nected with the Holy Eucharist, all call 

[xi] 



NOTE TO THE READER 

for new presentation of the truths in 
their hearing upon the presence of 
Christ in the Tabernacle. 

The thoughts have been divided into 
points and put under somewhat novel 
headings in order to facilitate remem- 
brance and to stimulate lax attention. 
The presence of listeners has been sup- 
posed, and it is hoped that the direct- 
ness of address, arising from this 
supposition, will make the book suitable 
for public reading without rendering it 
less suited to private reflections. The 
substance of the thoughts is taken from 
the Gospels, and an endeavor has been 
made to follow our Lord along more 
lowly paths and to study His words 
and deeds in some less hackneyed as- 
(pects and with new bearing upon His 
life on the Altar. 

At the end of the book will be found 
an account of the Holy Hour and its 
indulgences with an order of exercises 
which can be altered to suit one's de- 
votional tastes. Thoughts, prayers, 
[xii] 



NOTE TO THE READER 

hymns, everything, in a word, necessary 
to the proper carrying on of the Holy 
Hour will he found between the covers 
of this manual. 

F. P. D. 



[xiii] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 



SLEEPING, WATCHING AND 
WAKING 

SLEEPING 



Y( 



OU will not read in our Lord's life 
much about His sleeping. In fact the 
hours of sleep are in a sense hardly 
a part of man's life. You have heard 
Jesus say, speaking of Himself, "The 
Son of Man hath not whereon to lay 
His head." Jesus found it difficult to 
get a resting place for the night. The 
rare mention of His sleeping, then, 
makes famous the sleep of Jesus dur- 
ing a storm on the lake of Galilee. 
He was tired with the day's work 
which had been heavier than usual. 
When He entered the boat of the 
apostles to cross the lake, He lay down 
in the stern of the vessel and rested His 
head on a pillow, which likely enough 

[3] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

was the rough cushions of the seats or 
perhaps some improvised pillow of coat 
or sail. Jesus was very tired. The 
apostles remembered this sleep of His 
for all their life. Time and time again 
they looked towards Him as they saw 
the storm gather and break on their 
frail boat. Yet Jesus slept. The wind 
rushed madly down from the encircling 
hills, whipped the racing waves into 
flying foam, flinging the lifted surge 
over the side of the ship and filled the 
boat with water. This was no ordinary 
storm. The fishermen who had so 
often sailed the lake were now fright- 
ened. Would the sleep of Jesus never 
come to an end? Their fears increase 
until they can contain themselves no 
longer. They shriek out, "Lord save 
us, we perish." Jesus awoke. He 
briefly rebuked the timid apostles: "O 
ye of little faith," and as briefly re- 
stored calm to the lake. "Peace, be 
still," He said, ''and the wind ceased 
and there was a great calm." 
[4] 



SLEEPING • WATCHING ' WAKING 

Jesus might reproach His followers 
with lack of faith but could you so re- 
proach them? The apostles were in 
the same vessel with Jesus; they 
looked to Him; they prayed to Him. 
Their faith was little because despite 
all the power which Jesus had displayed 
on many occasions, they were still lack- 
ing in the courage of their convictions. 
Your faith, you must sadly admit, is 
little also. Jesus in the Blessed Sac- 
rament, wrapped up within the color, 
shape, weight, and other appearances 
of bread, may be said to be asleep as 
far as moving or speaking is concerned. 
Jesus is quiet but He is with you and 
wants you to call to Him if the storm 
is upon you. Your souls may be dis- 
turbed by anger. You may be strug- 
gling with despair. You may think 
that all is lost and that you must yield 
to the wild fury of some temptation. 
Every powerful emotion that swells 
and rages and seems to be about to 
sweep you from virtue and God, re- 

[5] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

sembles the storm that fell upon the 
apostles. Jesus was asleep in the 
hinder part of the ship. The apostles 
should not have feared. Neither 
should you. The storm will not over- 
whelm you. But if the waves run high, 
if you feel that you never met before in 
your life so fierce a tempest, then look 
to Jesus and cry to Jesus, "Lord, save 
us, we perish." 

Yet be not content that Jesus should 
be in the same Church with you. 
Bring Him still nearer. Bring Him 
into the roaring winds and wild wa- 
ters. Jesus will speak with power 
from where He lays His head in the 
sacramental sleep in the tabernacle. 
Jesus will speak with greater power 
if you bring Him to you in Com- 
munion to lay His head within your 
hearts. Jesus should not be permitted 
to utter the sad cry that He has not 
whereon to lay His head. No, you 
will welcome Him into your agitated 
souls, and there He surely will hear 
[6] 



SLEEPING • WATCHING * WAKING 

your cries for help. Through the 
storm the voice of Jesus will ring in 
tones of rebuke against anger, tempta- 
tion or despair. You will hear His 
omnipotent voice command the storms : 
"Peace, be still." The great storm will 
be followed by a great calm. 

WATCHING 

Jesus was sleeping in the boat while 
the apostles watched and worked. 
This was not the usual way. In most 
cases it was Jesus who kept the watch. 
Watching is the duty of those who are 
awake while others are asleep. The 
sentry watches while the army sleeps. 
The shepherds were keeping their 
watches over their flocks when Bethle- 
hem was asleep on the night Jesus was 
born. Jesus came upon earth in the 
watches of the night and very early in 
His life did Jesus begin to stay awake 
while others slept. Many a time too 
after that He passed the night in 
prayer, keeping watch over His flock. 

m 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

They must rest; He must watch and 
talk with His Father about His little 
flock. On one such occasion the apos- 
tles had embarked and were rowing 
across the lake of Galilee. The winds 
were against them and their toil was 
great. They labored long and hard 
and accomplished little. They were 
growing discouraged when suddenly 
Jesus, Who had been watching all the 
night, came to them walking over the 
waves about the fourth watch of the 
night. At once all their troubles 
ceased. Again, after His Resurrec- 
tion, the apostles saw Jesus in the early 
morning and at His word let down 
their nets and found their labors, which 
so far had been in vain, suddenly re- 
warded by an abundant haul of fish. 
Jesus again had been watching while 
His followers worked. 

These are a few of Jesus' watchings. 
They show us His love. They prepare 
us for the long, unceasing watch of Je- 
sus in the Blessed Sacrament. There 
[8] 



SLEEPING • WATCHING ' WAKING 

Jesus holds sleepless vigil. There He 
is the sentinel of mankind, doing sen- 
try duty for all, watching while you 
sleep, praying while you are silent, 
ever ready to come forth to you in your 
trials, to bless your failures with suc- 
cess. Come in the early morning and 
you will find that Jesus has not slept. 
He will perform a greater miracle than 
walking on the waters. He will make 
His way into your troubled hearts. 
He will give you a richer reward than 
nets breaking with great fishes. Your 
hearts will fill to overflowing with Je- 
sus Himself and all His graces. With 
the spouse of the Canticles, manifest- 
ing greater and more lasting love, Je- 
sus may cry from the stillness of the 
tabernacle: ''I sleep and my heart 
watcheth." Yes, Jesus is, as St. Paul 
tells us, ''always living to make inter- 
cession for us." Come to the watching 
Heart on the altar: come in trouble and 
you will find calm ; come in failure and 
you will have success. 

[9] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

You have yet to hear of the most ter- 
rible watcli which Jesus kept, a watch 
which began in blood, continued in 
blood and ended in blood, from the 
pores oozing blood in Gethsemane 
to deep wounds gushing blood on Cal- 
vary. When you think of the watches 
on the altar, forget not His great watch 
and His last watch, the watch of the 
Passion. Jesus watched then for your 
worst troubles and for your saddest 
failures. You were threatened by no 
earthly storm ending in shipwreck, but 
over you hung the black clouds of eter- 
nal wrath. You were near to everlast- 
ing ship^vreck when Jesus entered upon 
His death watch for you. You were 
condemned criminals. All your la- 
bors of soul were in vain until Jesus 
began and finished the watching which 
went from the Garden to the Cross. 
There He saved you from eternal dam- 
nation; there He won for you the sue- 
cess of heaven when you were through 
sin facing the unending failure of hell. 
[10] 



SLEEPING • WATCHING * WAKING 

Recall too the price Jesus paid in His 
watching for you. There was no clos- 
ing of the eyes on that watch. The 
sight of sin and torture kept the eyes 
open in fear and sorrow. The wild 
mob with clubs, hurrying Him over the 
dark roads from one place to another 
left no leisure for repose. Could His 
head rest when they wove thorns about 
it? Could His body rest as it leaned 
against the pillar of the scourging? 
Could His eyes close in sleep when 
false witnesses and violent adjurations, 
when questionings of Pilate and scoff - 
ings of Herod, when jeers and insults 
and cries of repudiation, beat upon His 
ears and kept His soul in a fever? Ah, 
but then might He not cease His watch 
and take His rest when His tormentor 
finally brought Him to His bed and 
made Him lie thereon? Soft mattress 
that, the hard wood of the Cross ; yield- 
ing pillow that, which was made of 
pointed thorns, resting upon a beam, 
and for coverings there was nakedness, 

[11] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

and that Jesus might not shp from the 
resting place which His friends pre- 
pared for Him, they tucked in His 
hands and feet with hammers and nails. 
Oh, that was watching for you and me! 
The watching of divine mercy, the 
watching of infinite love ! Nor has the 
watching of Jesus yet come to an end. 
His eyes are still open, because sin will 
not let Him close them. He looks to- 
day for a resting-place. Some offer 
Him a cross. What do you offer 
Him? 

WAKING 

To consider Jesus when awake is to 
take all four gospels for consideration. 
The subject is too vast. Restrict this 
question of being awake to those occa- 
sions when Jesus taught you the ne- 
cessity of watchfulness. Watching is 
staying awake when one might sleep. 
Consider here the topic of being asleep 
when one ought to be awake. You are 
all servants in the Lord's great house- 
[12] 



SLEEPING • WATCHING * WAKING 

hold, and to you all Jesus speaks when 
He says : "Let your loins be girt and 
lamps burning in your hands. And 
you yourselves are like to men who wait 
for their lord . . . that when He 
Cometh and knocketh they may open 
to Him immediately. Blessed are 
those servants whom the Lord when 
He Cometh shall find watching.'' You 
must watch then for the coming of the 
master of the house and have all ready. 
There are two watches you must keep. 
Be awake against the enemy and be 
awake when the Lord comes for the 
last time. Be awake against sin and 
awake against death. 

It was when the master of the house 
was asleep, that the enemy came and 
sowed weeds in the wheat-field. 
"Watch and pray," Jesus warned His 
apostles, and in reply they presumed 
and slept. They all shared in Peter's 
confidence. Nothing they thought 
would separate them from the master. 
Yet they ceased to pray and they 

[13] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

ceased to watch. You however must 
not be too hard on these weary follow- 
ers of Christ. They did not presume 
more than once. Their desertions and 
denials w^ere not repeated again and 
again. If they turned a deaf ear to 
the sad cry of Jesus, ''Could vou not 
watch one hour with me?" you never 
read of them doing so again. They 
w^atched and prayed all their life after 
because they failed to w^atch and pray 
in the Garden. Will the w^ords of Je- 
sus have the same success w^ith you? 
Are you permitting your soul to fall 
asleep? Are you ceasing to watch and 
pray? Is the enemy coming to sow in 
your souls evil habits, slothful w^ays, 
neglect, indifference, low standards, lax 
principles, all the benumbing, and 
deadening heaviness of sin? ''But you, 
brethren," cries St. Paul, "are not in 
darkness. All you are the children of 
light and children of the day. We are 
not of the night nor of darkness. 
Therefore let us not sleep as others do, 
[14] 



SLEEPING • WATCHING ' WAKING 

but let US watch and be sober." The 
Church wishes the hght never to go 
out before the Blessed Sacrament. 
You are to rival the light of the Sanc- 
tuary Lamp in your unceasing watch- 
fulness of soul against sin. 

Be awake also against death. That 
is the other watchfulness which Jesus 
teaches you to have. Be awake no 
matter in what watch of the night He 
may come, and He has told you He 
may come at any hour, yes, secretly 
even, like a thief of the night. The 
bridegroom came suddenly upon the 
sleeping bridesmaids, and those who 
were ready went in with bride and 
bridegroom to the wedding feast. The 
foolish virgins who had not been wary, 
were left forever without, knocking 
against a closed door and receiving no 
answer but the echo of their knock and 
the sad message that they were un- 
known to Him who had but a short 
while before invited them to be near 
Him at the wedding. ''You know not 

[15] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

the day nor the hour." Xow you may 
knock and it will be opened to you. 
Now you are known. Now if you 
pray, ''Lord open to us/' He will gladly 
comply with your request. There are 
two moments you are absolutely sure 
you will have, the present moment and 
the moment of your death. Whether 
you will have years of other moments 
or half a dozen other moments, God 
alone knows, but you know that you 
have the present moment, and you 
know that you will have the moment 
of your death. These are the two mo- 
ments you join so often together when 
you sav the Hail Marv. Let that 
prayer be on your lips at this moment, 
"Pray for us, sinners now and at the 
hour of our death." Marj^ will win for 
you watchfuhiess in the moment of your 
death. ^lary will bring you to her 
Son. The jNIother is well aware that 
every time Jesus comes to you, your 
soul is more awake and more vigilant 
against sin. The mother feels that if 
[16] 



SLEEPING • WATCHING • WAKING 

Jesus comes now, His last coming will 
find you one of the servants whom He 
shall bless because He has found you 
watching. Mary, Mother of Jesus, 
pray for us sinners now and at the hour 
of our death! 



PRAYER 

JESUS y life and vigor of our 
^^ soulSj who in the sacrament 
of thy love seemest silent but art 
watchful and waking, save us by 
thy vigilance; visit us in the storms 
which beset us; and dispelling all 
heaviness of sin, make u^ by thy 
vivifying food every instant ready 
for thy last coming and ever more 
prepared for our eternal awaken- 
ing. 



[17] 



FATHER, MOTHER AND CHILD 
FATHER 



G. 



^OD was kno^^Tl as Father before 
Christ our Lord came, but God was to 
the Jews a stern Father. He pro- 
tected but He punished. They were 
His chosen people, but He was their 
just and severe master. When Jesus 
came. He revealed God in a new light. 
God had been the Father, now He be- 
came our Father. jNIan beholds the 
dealings of God the Father and God 
the Son; man hears the Son speak to 
the Father and the Father to the Son. 
The Gospel presents to us that won- 
derful intercourse of earth and heaven. 
How you would have rejoiced to wit- 
ness what the people of our Lord's time 
witnessed ! You would have a new and 
more consoling idea of God, the Father. 
[18] 



FATHER • MOTHER * CHH^D 

You would learn the grandeur of the 
Father's house and resolve to make it 
a house of prayer. You would under- 
stand that the will of the Father must 
govern all your lives. You would re- 
joice that the Father had many man- 
sions prepared for all of you. In 
every action of the day, in the words 
you uttered and the thoughts you had, 
you would be taught that the Father 
should rule you. You would hear Je- 
sus begin His Agony with "Father, thy 
will be done," and His first word on 
the cross would be, ^'Father, forgive 
them," and His last word would be, 
''Father, into thy hands I commend 
my spirit." If Jesus brought our 
Father in heaven down upon earth by 
His prayers and praise and teaching. 
He has kept our Father near us 
through the Blessed Sacrament. 
What is that most of all makes the 
Church the Father's house? Is it not 
Jesus upon the altar still urging you 
to make it a house of prayer? Where 

[19] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

are your prayers to our Father and 
your praise to Him filled with that love 
which our Heavenly Father deserves 
of you and demands from you? Is it 
not before the tabernacle? What is it 
that renews for you every day the Son's 
greatest gift to the Father? Is it not 
the Mass, wliich recalls to you your 
greatest debt to both Father and Son, 
the debt of your redemption and sancti- 
fication, the Mass which brings back to 
your hearts the saddest and most tender 
of all the times in which the Son spoke 
to the Father, I mean the dark hour 
of the Passion. 

The life of Jesus revealed the Father 
and so too did His teaching. No- 
where have you a more touching, a 
more perfect picture of a father's 
love than from the lips of Jesus. 
In the books of the world's au- 
thors you will find the quiet, undemon- 
strative love of a father set forth for 
you in many a masterly sketch, but 
none of them show you the father's 
[20] 



FATHER • MOTHER • CHILD 

heart as Jesus did in the parable of the 
Prodigal. The father had toiled all 
his life for his two sons. In an instant 
he yielded to his younger son what was 
asked for, bore patiently with his son's 
insolence, did not disown him when the 
son disgraced him, promptly forgot the 
past when his son returned and gave 
him a reception which could not have 
been exceeded, had his son come home 
with all the honors that the world can 
give instead of coming straight from 
a pig-pen. Perhaps the most affecting 
trait of the whole story and a trait 
which discloses for us a more than man's 
heart is described to us in the words: 
''When he was yet a great way off, his 
father saw him and was moved to com- 
passion.'* "A great way off !" That is 
a phrase which lifts the veil from that 
fatherly heart and lets you behold the 
ceaseless watch of persevering love. 
You can see a father's strong, pene- 
trating glance; you can see a pair of 
eyes turned ever one way. Their vi- 

[21] 



WATCHING AX HOUR 

sion may be clouded at times with a 
mist of regret almost verging upon de- 
spair, but you see them still waiting, 
still longing in wistful silence, still 
watching afar off. Do you see that 
father with a gaze expectant for a 
child's return, with a heart aching for 
a wanderer's home-coming? Then you 
cannot forget that the heart there de- 
scribed is the Heart of Jesus Himself 
and you cannot forget that the Fa- 
ther's House is here before you and the 
Father's embrace awaits you and His 
best banquet has been made ready to 
welcome you and bless you. 

MOTHER 

Christ our Lord did much to teach 
the world what father means, but Christ 
did more to teach the world what 
mother means. He honored the 
mother in the highest way she could be 
honored. Jesus might have come in 
the perfection of manhood, created as 
Adam was in the full possession of all 
[22] 



FATHER • MOTHER * CHILD 

his qualities, but Jesus chose to dignify 
motherhood by making it the means 
through which God came to man, A 
human mother was the temple wherein 
was wrought the mystery of the Incar- 
nation. A human mother was the first 
shrine for the God-man to rest in and 
receive homage. Jesus blessed mother- 
hood by making His mother Mary the 
fairest of God's creatures, anticipating 
in her regard the fruits of the Redemp- 
tion and interposing between her soul 
and the penalty of sin the brightness of 
God's grace which never permitted the 
shadow of sin to rest for one moment 
upon her immaculate soul. Jesus 
blessed human motherhood by making 
Himself a child and drawing from a 
human mother the life and sustenance 
of His body, entrusting Himself to her 
loving care, allowing Himself to be 
wholly dependent upon her tender de- 
votedness. ''They found the child with 
Mary, his mother," so the Gospel tells 
you. God's revealed word has united 

[23] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Jesus and His mother, Marj% and who 
will dare separate them? 

Supremely honored was ^lary! 
Her heart was the first tabernacle of 
Jesus; her heart was His life, quicken- 
ing His members while her spirit mag- 
nified with loving humility Her son 
and her God. Supremely honored in- 
deed! Yet what of you who approach 
the altar-rail; who receive into your 
hearts the body and blood, soul and 
divinity of Jesus, who frequently, 
daily even, experience a new, a strange, 
an incomj^rehensible Incarnation; what 
is your honor and supreme happiness? 
If Jesus demeaned Himself to become 
a helpless child dependent upon the 
care of a tender mother, has He not 
demeaned Himself to more utter help- 
lessness, becoming a fragment of bread 
for your food. If Jesus gave Himself 
to all the dear intimacy, which ]Mary, 
His mother, showered upon Him, has 
He not dra^Mi near to you in another 
intimacy, expecting like favors of love. 
[24] 



FATHER • MOTHER ' CHILD 

If Jesus deigned to participate in His 
mother's life, to hang upon her breath, 
to be quickened by her blood and be fed 
by her substance, what an honor will 
you consider it that He should sustain 
you, become your food and pass into 
your life? Truly the mother's love 
which Jesus received so abundantly. 
He imparts to us in ever greater abun- 
dance in Communion. 

Nor is it only because Jesus becomes 
your life-food that the tabernacle re- 
calls a mother's love. There too He 
continues that life of consolation which 
He began for the mothers of Palestine. 
Jesus knew and felt the sorrows of a 
mother as no man ever did. He per- 
mitted the sword of sorrows to pierce 
His mother's heart. His birth. His 
early days were one series of trials for 
her. Around the cradle of Jesus rang 
the sad cries of hundreds of mothers 
whose babes were slain at Bethlehem. 
Jesus began early to fathom the sor- 
rowful depths of mother love and never 

[25] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

ceased to explore new deeps even to the 
last moment of His mortal life when 
He beheld the crucifixion of a mother's 
heart. Yet if Jesus knew a mother's 
sorrows, it was to sj^mpathize with her, 
to console her, to make her happy. 
JNIary from her throne in heaven will 
tell you how fully Jesus rewards the 
sorrows of a mother. Around her are 
thronging the martyred babes of Beth- 
lehem, and they forget their momen- 
tary pangs in an eternity of joy. The 
mother of Peter, and the mother of 
James and John, experienced the con- 
solation of Jesus. The wife of Jairus 
and the woman of Canaan felt the 
heart love of Jesus when they embraced 
once more their daughters in the full 
vigor of life. The widow of Nairn had 
touching proof of Jesus' tender con- 
descension when she received her son at 
His hands back from the tomb. Mary 
was not forgotten amidst the sad aban- 
donments of Calvary. If Jesus had 
to leave His mother, He would do what 
[26] 



FATHER • MOTHER • CHILD 

He could to supply for His absence. 
You know too well — God grant it be 
not from personal experience of sor- 
row! — that in the tabernacle still Jesus 
is consoling the sorrows of mothers. 
Whether it be sickness, or suffering or 
death or, what is worse, whether it be 
black disgrace, has come to your chil- 
dren, where shall you go except to Je- 
sus? To whom shall your prayers be 
offered? Shall it not be to Jesus, who 
will answer your prayers now or will 
lift the veil of heaven to your weeping 
gaze, and will come to your hearts in 
His own sweet presence to console you 
by contentment, if not by cure. 

CHILD 

On Palm Sunday Jesus reached the 
highest point of human approbation. 
Multitudes of His countrymen hail 
Him with acclamations of joy. They 
make a carpet of their colored gar- 
ments and of the green boughs of the 
palm-tree and upon that way of tri- 

[27] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

umph Jesus enters into Jerusalem. 
The chief city of His native land joins 
in the enthusiasm. Jesus advances up 
the heights where rose the temple of 
God. There, as He enters, came the 
blind and lame and He cured them. 
Assuredly now at last Jesus had come 
unto His own. Like a conqueror He 
led His countrymen, became master of 
the capital city, and took full posses- 
sion of the soul-citadel of the Jews, the 
temple of God, the house of His 
Father. At that supreme moment in 
the life of Jesus it was the providence 
of God that the children should take 
up the cry of the multitude, a cry which 
their sweet voices had often uttered in 
their songs on the festival. They had 
sung in hope of the Messias and now 
the reality was before them. The chil- 
dren of the temple greeted the Lord of 
the temple. 

You have been privileged to witness 
a similar scene in the triumphal proces- 
sion of the Lord of the Eucharist. Je- 
[28] 



FATHER * MOTHER ' CHILD 

sus has been entering into His 
kingdom. The tabernacle was not 
meant to be the goal of His life in 
the Blessed Sacrament. That is His 
starting-point. You have seen Him 
advancing day by day, enlarging the 
circle of His conquests. New coun- 
tries have been blessed with new 
churches. New devotions have come to 
give new homage to Jesus and draw 
Him forth from the tabernacle. Bene- 
diction of the Blessed Sacrament, and 
Exposition and the Holy Hour and 
Communions of Reparation and Sodal- 
ities and Pious Associations with 
monthly, weekly and daily Communi- 
cants, Corpus Christi with its proces- 
sion, the First Friday with its 
devotions, and Confraternities of the 
Blessed Sacrament, and religious both 
cloistered and uncloistered, making the 
Eucharist the supreme object of their 
service and adoration, these are giving 
enthusiastic welcome to Jesus on the 
altar, these are leading Him to the cit- 

[29] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

adel of His love's conquest, to the real 
temple of God, to the ultimate taber- 
nacle of His Eucharistic presence, the 
hearts of mankind. 

You have been privileged to witness 
at this point in the triumphal advance 
of Jesus a scene similar to that which 
greeted Him in His triumph in Jeru- 
salem on the first Palm Sunday. The 
children of God's Church have entered 
into the triumphal procession; their 
voices cry out, "Hosanna to the Son of 
David. Blessed is He that cometh in 
the name of the Lord." Is there any- 
one who will join the enemies of Jesus 
and complain, as was done on that for- 
mer day, of the song of the children 
and their praise? Is there anyone has 
misgivings that the children do not be- 
long at the altar rail? Surely if any- 
one were so tempted, he will remember 
that the children are innocent where 
their elders are guilty; that the child 
was Jesus' model for humility where 
older people were proud and disobedi- 
[30] 



FATHER • MOTHER ' CHILD 

ent; that warm, loving hearts, not cold 
and selfish ones, are beating within the 
young breasts which bring Jesus to 
themselves from His altar home. The 
children have a right to their place at 
the altar. The children of Bethlehem 
shed their blood for the Christ child's 
entrance into the world ; the children of 
Jerusalem sang their songs fearlessly 
to welcome the Christ-man's entrance 
into the temple. Suffer the little ones 
to come. Thus shall the full chorus of 
praise to Jesus in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment be sounded. Listen to the re- 
buke our Lord gave the enemies of those 
children that welcomed Him: ''Have 
you never read: Out of the mouth of 
infants and of sucklings thou hast per- 
fected praise." 

PRAYER 

T^INDLE in our hearts, good 
•^^ Jesus, the consuming -fire 
of thy charity and bring to thy 
altar-rail every father, mother and 

[31] 



WATCHING AN HOUE 

child, that as we find in thy Sacra- 
ment all the blessings of human af- 
fection, we may be welcomed by 
thee and thy Heart's tenderest 
love to our dear home in heaven. 



[32] 



G< 



WATER, WINE AND OIL 
WATER 



'OD does not ask of you extraordi- 
nary things. Give Him the daily duties 
well done, done with His grace and 
blessing and He will be content. His 
omnipotence can ennoble the most insig- 
nificant things until they become capa- 
ble of the highest effects. A cup of 
cold water given in the name of Jesus 
will open the gates of heaven, reveal to 
mortal eyes the vision of God Himself 
and delight the giver with joyous con- 
templation of divine Beauty, never to 
come to an end. Jesus in His life and in 
His Church teaches you what He can 
do with what is little and common in 
the eyes of man. What is more com- 
mon than water? What is so weak 
and helpless to our way of thinking? 

[33] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Water can cleanse and purify; water 
can cool and refresh. By man's indus- 
try water has been made to accomplish 
great works, move huge wheels, run 
vast machinery and produce countless 
results, beneficial to all. Water does 
that by giving back the power stored 
within it. Of itself you know water to 
be so weak that a child's fingers can 
play with it, but by the immense force 
of the sun, it has been lifted on high 
and has fallen back in rain upon the 
high hills. In its currents remains yet 
the power which put it on the hills, and 
as it flows downward, it distributes that 
power. If man and nature can do so 
much with water, you are not surprised 
that God can do more. Jesus used and 
blessed the common things of life. 
From them He drew His lessons; and 
with them He accomplished wonders. 
The sahva on His lips might be made 
to heal the deaf and dumb. Jesus then 
took water and raised it higher than 
the sun does and gave it a greater 
[34] 



WATER • WINE ' OIL 

power than the energy of a flowing cur- 
rent, Jesus made water an instrument 
for imparting the grace of God. The 
great waterfalls of the world are mere 
pygmies in the work they perform if 
you compare them with the work done 
in time and eternity by the fall of a 
few drops of water in Baptism. Jesus 
commanded the waves of the sea and 
they obeyed Him and were still. Jesus 
commanded the waters of the world, 
and in obedience to Him the waters 
cleanse away sin, make a child of God 
and fill every human soul with a col- 
lection of divine and everlasting won- 
ders. 

Water has power and water has 
sweetness too. The fevered brow, the 
soiled hands, the parched tongue, are re- 
freshed with the cooling and cleansing 
flow of water. The traveler toiling 
over the dry sands, burning, begrimed 
and thirsty, becomes a new man in the 
silver currents of a river or lake and is 
strong and happy for the next stage 

[35] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

of his journey. Jesus was travel- 
worn and parched with thirst when 
He asked the Samaritan woman for 
a draught of water. She could refresh 
Him in body but He could give her 
more marvellous, more enduring re- 
freshment. ''He that shall drink of 
the water I shall give," so Jesus told 
her and tells you, "shall not thirst for- 
ever. But the water I shall give him, 
shall become in him a fountain of water 
springing up into everlasting life." 
What is this water of life of which you 
read so much in the Xew Testament? 
It is the grace and help of God. It is 
the flow of holy thoughts within the 
mind. It is the stream of contrite 
love which washes away sin. It is the 
sparkling, sunlit happiness which 
courses through the parched soul and 
fills its dark, forbidding depths with 
fathomless tides of peace. Where will 
you find the waters of life? You must 
draw them from the fountains of the 
Saviour. The world like the Samari- 
[36] 



WATER • WINE • OIL 

tan woman does not know and does not 
ask but you know and you should ask, 
and Jesus will give to you. If many 
reject the streams of God's grace or 
accept them only to pollute their crystal 
currents, you will draw from grace's 
most plenteous fountain in the Blessed 
Eucharist and enjoy the refreshment 
Jesus offers you there. He does not 
hold out to your thirsting lips a cup of 
cold water. Jesus presents you in the 
sacrament of His love a vessel brim- 
ming with divine contents, His body 
rich in saving blood. 

WINE 

Water is a picture of the purifying 
and refreshing powers of divine grace. 
Wine is a picture of its invigorating 
strength. Water speaks of consola- 
lation; wine speaks of enthusiastic fer- 
vor. Jesus changed the water into 
wine at Cana in Galilee because there 
was need of wine. So in your hearts 
if you need purifying from sin or con- 

[37] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

solation and refreshment in the journey 
of life, Jesus will give you to drink of 
the living waters. But perhaps you 
need courage; perhaps you are 
wounded; then God's grace wuU be as 
wine to w^arm your cold purposes with 
new heart for the struggle and to 
staunch your w^ounds with a healing 
smart. Perhaps you may be about to 
be nailed to your cross. You have 
been hardly treated by all. You have 
been laughed at and scorned. The 
lash has fallen on your shoulders but 
w^orse is the cutting sting of a contemp- 
tuous w^ord. The thorns have pierced 
your brow but keener are the pangs of 
ingratitude. The spear is about to 
pierce your heart, but your spirit is 
pierced more deeply w^ith some wrong 
w^hich you think could not be deadlier, 
whose iron, you sav to vourself, is bur- 
ied within forever. All, then, if you 
are feeling like that, you need some of 
the vintage of Christ; you must put 
your lips where you can catch the blood- 
[38] 



WATER • WINE * OIL 

red drippings from the wine-press 
which Jesus trod alone and of all man- 
kind none was with Him. When Je- 
sus was about to be nailed to His cross, 
they gave to Him to drink wine min- 
gled with myrrh. It was well-meant 
charity but it was worldly, pagan char- 
ity. Christ would not be drugged and 
stupefied. He would have none of 
what modern pagans call euthanasia. 
He would not suffer one pang less or 
be less sensitive to any throb of pain. 
Jesus had the wine of God, not the 
wine of the world in His veins. God's 
wine fires and invigorates. It does not 
drug and stupefy. And you if you are 
facing your crucifixion, you must not 
turn to any worldly opiates. Stubborn 
hatred or steeling of the heart, rigid 
and unyielding pride, frenzied dissipa- 
tion, these are wine mingled with 
myrrh ; they are not wine of the grapes 
of God, they are not of the vintage of 
Golgotha but the dregs and lees of 
Haceldama. Quaff of the fruit of the 

[39] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

vine which kept Jesus courageous and 
humble. Touch not that unholy drink 
which led to the pride and despair of 
Judas. 

When Jesus heard His Mother, 
ISIary, whisper to Him at the marriage- 
feast in Cana, ''They have no wine," His 
heart melted with pity for the embar- 
rassment of the new couple, and Jesus 
performed a stupendous miracle to do 
an act of kindness. He saw, it is true, 
that His mission would be helped in 
many ways by this changing of water 
into wine, but His first motive in act- 
ing was that suggested by His JNIother, 
the momentary need of the banquet, 
''They have no wine." That was the 
beginning of the miracles of Jesus. 
Three years later when He came to 
His last night upon earth. He saw a 
greater need. He saw the souls of 
men and your souls disheartened, not 
by any slight embarrassment like that 
at Cana but rather stricken down and 
left half-dead upon the way of life, like 
[40] 



WATER • WINE • OIL 

the traveler found by the good Samari- 
tan. Once again the suggestion of His 
Mother must have come to Him, ''They 
have no wine/' To be strong against 
evil, to drag along wounded limbs, to 
face death, to do all this and a thou- 
sand more difficult duties, would call for 
courage and fervor. "They have no 
wine,'' Jesus thought, and as He had 
made wine of water, so now He made 
blood of wine. Truly Jesus kept His 
best wine to the last. Would you have 
courage and feel the warmth of fervor 
thrill in your veins, receive you all the 
blood of the Lord, crying, *'Blood of 
Christ, be strong wine for me! Pas- 
sion of Christ, give me heart from 
Thee." 

OIL 

The grace of God refreshes like 
water, invigorates like wine and im- 
parts cheerfulness like oil. The psalm- 
ist praises God for His gifts: ''The 
earth shall be filled with the fruit of 

[41] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

thy works . . . that wine may cheer 
the heart of man ; that he make the face 
cheerful with oil." Agahi at another 
time the psalmist unites the oil and 
wine: "Thou hast anointed my head 
with oil, and my chalice which in- 
ebriateth me, how goodly is it!" Oil 
had many uses among the Jews. It 
gave strength as a food; it was used as 
a medicine; it was a light to illuminate 
the darkness. There were many rea- 
sons for calling it the ''oil of gladness'* 
as it was often called. Jesus, however, 
made of it, as He made of the other 
necessities of life, a means of impart- 
ing His gi'ace. As He did to wine and 
water, so also to oil Jesus imparted a 
divine force. The oil of Extreme Unc- 
tion will be an oil of gladness to you as 
you draw near to death. The apos- 
tles ^'anointed with oil many that were 
sick and healed them." The Good Sa- 
maritan poured oil and wine into the 
wounds of the stricken traveler. ISIary 
jNIagdalen anointed the feet of Jesus 
[42] 



WATER • WINE ' OIL 

and then on another occasion His head. 
The wise Virgins went in rejoicing be- 
cause they had their vessels filled with 
oil. So you see how deservedly this 
substance has been called the oil of 
gladness, and though the grace of God 
can and does give all virtues, you are 
right in thinking of cheerfulness when 
you think of the oil which found a place 
in the life of Jesus and became through 
Him an instrument of grace. 

Oil finds a place too in the Blessed 
Sacrament. It feeds the lamp which 
burns near the altar. You can be 
grateful to the generous oil which gives 
of its whole substance to honor its hid- 
den Lord. If that burning oil could 
speak, it would tell of many a sad 
heart which left a dead weight of sor- 
row beneath its rays and went away 
cheered by what is still an oil of glad- 
ness. The oil comes closer still to the 
Blessed Sacrament. You know that 
the fingers of the priest which touch the 
sacred species are anointed with oil 

[43] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

and consecrated to that holy duty. 
The hand which holds aloft your God 
for adoration during INIass and which 
lays the consecrated particle upon your 
tongue, has been specially blessed with 
oil to be better fitted to bring Jesus to 
you. Let then the oil of grace make 
your face cheerful. Go forth to your 
work with the happiness of God beam- 
ing in your face. Banish the dark look 
of hatred; dispel the frown of impa- 
tience ; hush the bitter murmur of com- 
plaint; make every word and every 
moment and every glance, sweet and 
gentle and tender with the oil of glad- 
ness. Even though you go to pain and 
suffering, go like the apostles of Jesus 
who went to persecution rejoicing. 
The number of foolish virgins is, alas, 
far too great. Few are they who have 
their vessels filled with oil and are ready 
to enter in with the Bridegroom. 
Draw near to the anointed hands of 
the priest that they may bring to your 
souls the oil of God's gladness and that 
[44] 



WATER • WINE • OIL 

you may console the saddened Bride- 
groom for those who come not near the 
altar of God and who must therefore 
hear forever the sad sentence of divine 
abandonment: ''Amen I say to you, I 
know you not." 

PRAYER 

T ORDy LiOrd, bestow upon us 
-^-' the graces typified and 
granted through water, wine and 
oil, that refreshed, strengthened 
and made glad by thy gracious 
gifts, we may enjoy to the full in 
thy eternal home the blessedness of 
which it is permitted us to have a 
foretaste at thy altar. 



[45] 



WOLF, LION AND LAMB 
WOLF 

JdEWARE of false prophets who 
come to you in the clothing of sheep but 
mwardly they are ravenous wolves." 
In these words Jesus warns you against 
false prophets who would destroy your 
faith. The same words warn vou 
against other deceitful and lying proph- 
ets who promise much to their deluded 
dupes and finally with their lies and de- 
ceptions unmasked are shown to be 
even more ravenous wolves than the 
prophets of unbelief. Evil passions 
make more perverts from the faith than 
do teachers of false doctrines. Pas- 
sions disguise themselves; unbelief to- 
day displays itself brazenh\ INIore 
Cathohcs give up the practice of their 
faith because of difficulties with the ten 
[46] 



WOLF • LION • LAMB 

commandments than because of diffi- 
culties with the creed. When a man 
habitually violates a commandment, he 
finds it hard to believe in the necessity 
of the command or the power and su- 
premacy of the Commander. The his- 
tory of the Church and your own 
experience of life have taught you that 
the sheep of Christ's flock perish in 
greater numbers from lack of morality 
than from lack of belief. A pet pas- 
sion is the best argument Satan has 
against dogma. Do people give up 
their behef in the perpetual bond of 
marriage, as revealed by Christ and 
taught by the Church, because they 
have had their minds clarified by rea- 
sons or because they have had their 
hearts wholly blinded by passion? 

You know well the mischief done by 
the ravenous wolves of passion, and con- 
sider now a more alarming truth about 
these savage passions. They do not 
come openly. You do not see at once 
their greedy eyes or feel their hot breath 

[47] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

or beliold the sharp teeth of their glut- 
tonous jaws. No, the wolves become 
like sheep. The passions disguise them- 
selves and hide their burning desires 
and foul, greedy ai:)petites. The pas- 
sions parade as virtues. Envj^ comes 
in the garb of zeal ; pride in the garb of 
nobility of soul. Sloth clothes itself in 
moderation; lust in kindness and char- 
ity; ambition in earnestness and the 
spirit of enterprise; anger in righteous 
indignation. All these disguises of the 
evil passions are beautiful virtues and 
would be desirable if they were not 
made the cloak for evil. How fair and 
shining and yielding to the touch are 
the silver white fleeces of the sheep but 
these attractions are all the more dan- 
gerous if they become the masks for 
dark and ravenous wolves. Beware of 
those false prophets who come to you 
in such clothing! 

Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament will 
be your guardian and strengthener 
against these dangerous passions. His 
[48] 



WOLF LION • LAMB 

wonderful Sacrament meets the pas- 
sions at their source. Jesus keeps the 
fountains of desire pure and cool and 
ever fresh and so the streams are pre- 
served from soiling pollution. You 
know that the passions are necessary to 
man and are sinful because of their ex- 
cesses. There must be desire of food, 
but there must not be gluttony; there 
must be thirst, but there must not be in- 
temperance. The passions like fire and 
electricity are useful and good when 
they are made the slaves of man; fire 
and electricity are fearful monsters 
when they escape from man's control. 
Jesus, therefore, in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment makes the passions of hunger and 
thirst the means of your sanctification. 
Jesus becomes food. If the evil pas- 
sions hide their hideous looks in sheep's 
clothing, Jesus to disarm the fear and 
timidity of His children veils Himself 
in the snow-white fleeces of bread. 
Jesus too becomes drink. Jesus took 
the deadly wine and made it the chan- 

[49] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

nel of life. The wine of inflamed pas- 
sions, the wine which ruins and destroys, 
is changed into the wine springing forth 
virgins. Jesus makes Himself your 
food and drink. That is one way in 
which He anticipates evil passions and 
robs them of their prey. There is too 
another way in which Jesus purifies 
passion at its sources. He, as food, 
enters into your very body and passes 
on to all the tingling nerves and to the 
warm surging blood. His presence, it 
is true, departs when the outward ap- 
pearance of the bread passes away but 
His grace remains, and that substance 
which was once His body may well be 
called holy still. The Church has ever 
considered sacred the substance which 
once formed the Blessed Sacrament and 
is careful that it is not desecrated in any 
way. But whatever may be said of 
your bodies fed upon the Bread of the 
altar, your souls have received abun- 
dantly of the grace of God. If the pas- 
sions respond to bodily needs and are 
[50] 



WOLF • LION * LAMB 

rooted deep in flesh and blood, the 
grace which fills the soul will serve to 
check evil passions at their first growth 
because the soul is the principle and 
source of all the life of the body, Jesus 
in the Blessed Sacrament will enlighten 
the mind to see through the deceptions 
of passion at the very outset, will 
strengthen the will to tear off the dis- 
guise and throttle the wolves while yet 
they are weak and will no doubt allay 
that fever in the blood which kindles 
helpful instincts into wild, raging 
frenzies. 

LION 

"Be sober and watch because your 
adversary the devil, as a raging lion, 
goeth about seeking whom he may de- 
vour." The lion, like the wolf, was a 
dreaded enemy of the people of Judea. 
The Judeans were shepherds of flocks 
and they knew their worst enemies, the 
wolf and the lion. David kept his 
father's sheep and in that duty stran- 

[51] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

gled a lion which had taken one of his 
flock. That courageous deed was 
enough to convince King Saul that 
David was not a mere boy but a fit 
champion to meet the mighty Goliath. 
Jesus, therefore, and His apostles 
called the enemies of their flocks and 
of men's souls, wolves and lions. 
Wolves, you heard, were treacherous 
and stealthy and captured their prey 
by deception. Lions are mightier 
beasts. They leap upon their foes with 
a roar and seem to scorn any conceal- 
ment. So St. Peter likened Satan to 
a raging lion. You learned that the 
passions deceive because they are per- 
verted good desires, because they put 
on the appearance of virtue, and so are 
like the wolves. Do the passions ever 
become raging lions? Alas, all know 
too well that a time comes when the 
passions throw aside all concealment 
and like the mighty monarch of the 
forest pounce upon their prey with a 
roar. That stage of the passions is the 
[52] 



WOLF • LION • LAMB 

stage of formed habit. When indulged 
passion becomes a habit, ravenous 
wolves become devouring lions. 

Happy are the men who have the 
Lion of the tribe of Juda to meet and 
overcome the roaring lion of the habit- 
ual passions! The Good Shepherd of 
the altar defends His flocks against lion 
as well as against wolf. In our day 
when medical science is making a closer 
study of evil habits and is discovering 
that many of the worst and most hor- 
rible habits of age are the outcome of 
acts committed in childhood, you should 
thank God that the children are drawn 
earlier to Communion. The early con- 
fession enables the child to relieve its 
oppressed conscience by consoling con- 
fession; the resolution of the soul will 
break off practices before they have 
hardened into habits ; the frequent Com- 
munion will fill their young hearts with 
holy thoughts and holy desires and so 
starve the unholy suggestions and ten- 
dencies of newly awakened passions. 

[53] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

The Blessed Sacrament can conquer 
evil habits as well as prevent their 
formation. David was a type of Jesus 
and is a type of Him still when Jesus 
slays the monster Goliath of habit. 
Well mioht the will look like a pygmy 
when it faces a habit w^hich has grown 
to giant size by repeated indulgence. 
What a huge, frightful thing it is, 
swollen and insolent, clad in iron, blus- 
tering and boasting and laughing to 
scorn the puny efforts of the stripling 
will! Yet if the will arm itself with the 
Blessed Sacrament, the Goliath of the 
soul will measure its huge bulk on the 
ground beside the first Goliath. What 
is the remedy proposed by St. Peter 
against the lion-roar of Satan? It is 
faith and courage. ''Resist ye,'' cries 
St. Peter, strong in faith. ^'Tlie God of 
all grace who hath called us unto his 
eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you 
have suffered a little, will himself per- 
fect you and confirm you and establish 
you." Faith and courage led David to 
[54] 



irOLF • LION • LAMB 

victory; faith and courage can conquer 
any habit; faith and courage come in 
abundance through the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. There is nothing in all our re- 
ligion which makes more frequent calls 
upon our faith and so exercises it more 
than the Blessed Sacrament. 

To the courageous confidence of the 
first attack must be added perseverance 
if the roarmg of the lion is to be stilled. 
Habit is to be overcome by habit and 
we know it can be. The soul that has 
gone down step by step to the depths 
of hell cannot expect to leap out of the 
pit in one swift flight. The victim of 
a habit needs companionship. Jesus 
mav be visited anv time; may be re- 
ceived daily. The victim of habit needs 
a refuge in his o^vn soul against his o^\ti 
fearful thoughts ; he will find it in grati- 
tude for the last visit of Jesus in Com- 
munion and in repentance and joy for 
the next visit. The will weakened by 
one habit must be strengthened by a new 
habit. Here again he will find m the 

[55] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

tabernacle and at the altar by repeated 
Communions ever new strength for his 
soul. If you know any soul whose ears 
are filled by the roaring lion of evil 
habit, then tell that soul to have faith, 
to have courage, to form a new habit, 
to feed upon the food of the "Lion of 
the tribe of Juda, of the root of David." 

LAMB 

The people of Judea hated the wolf 
and the lion because they loved their 
sheep. Sheep were their precious pos- 
sessions, their silver and gold, and their 
enemies were detested as much as the 
sheep themselves were held in high re- 
gard. What then was the tenderness 
of affection which the Judean showed 
to the lambs of the flock? The lambs 
were all the more precious because they 
were so weak and helpless. The lamb 
was a spiritual treasure too for Judea. 
The lamb became the choice sacrifice in 
the temple and formed part of the most 
touching feasts of the Jews. Wealth, 
[56] 



WOLF • LION • LAMB 

history, life, religion, were enshrined in 
the tender lamb. What a touching title 
therefore that was which the Baptist 
gave to Jesus! "Behold the Lamb of 
God, behold Him who taketh away the 
sins of the world!" No wonder the dis- 
ciples of John the Baptist became fol- 
lowers of Jesus. If Jesus was the 
Lamb of God then He would be the 
love of Israel and their leader. No 
wonder the Church took those words of 
John the Baptist and put them on the 
lips of the priest when he turns and 
holds up the Blessed Sacrament for 
your adoration at Communion time: 
"Behold the Lamb of God!" 

Surely the title of Lamb of God will 
have no less charm today to attract the 
hearts of men than it had when the Bap- 
tist first used the words to greet Jesus. 
It would take long to tell all the mean- 
ing found in that tender title of the 
Lamb of God, but you will no doubt be 
pleased to study it in connection with 
the wolf and the lion. The lambs of 

[57] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

men are the prej^ of wolf and lion but 
the Lamb of God is master and con- 
queror of these ferocious beasts. The 
heart which welcomes into it the Lamb 
of God will drive out the wolves and 
lions. The Lamb of God will teach 
patience and gentleness and no virtue 
is more necessary in the unceasing war 
with the passions. INIany a soul has 
grown wTary in the fight against the 
wild instincts of the flesh; many a soul 
in a fit of impatience has ceased to 
struggle and in angry despair has al- 
lowed the savage passions to have their 
way. Patience is most necessary, pa- 
tience w^ith weak walls, patience in the 
face of repeated relapses, patience 
against persistent habits, patience for a 
long, bloody fight. Xo evil habit can 
be subdued in a day. Strength indeed 
is necessary but it is strength with pa- 
tience. The grace of God must make 
the w^ill generous to rise to a heroic 
resolution and make the will patient to 
continue a conflict where manv defeats 
[58] 



WOLF • LION • LAMB 

are bound to be. In the Lamb of God 
you will find that strength and patience 
if you need them. Jesus in the Blessed 
Sacrament will make you strong be- 
cause He is God, and will make you 
patient because under the fleeces of 
bread He is a tender lamb and a perfect 
model of gentle meekness. 

To complete the conquest of passion 
one more thing must be done. The will 
must be made strong. Evil passion is 
exaggerated and perverted selfishness. 
Anything that weakens selfishness deals 
a death blow at the heart of passion. 
When you make the will strong, it 
means that you govern will by principle 
rather than by desire. And how can 
you make the will strong? There is one 
certain way, the way of sacrifice. If 
the passions tyrannize over the will and 
whirl it away to the indulgence of self, 
sacrifice teaches the will to relinquish 
even what is pleasing and so makes it 
strong against its tyrant. Give up self, 
and passiojis are routed utterly. Who 

[59] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

will teach that stern but fruitful lesson 
of sacrifice? Who else but the Lamb 
of God, the perfect type of perfect 
sacrifice? ''Behold the Lamb of God 
who taketh the sins of the world !" The 
sacrifice of Jesus has in fact atoned for 
all the sad crimes of passion, and the 
same sacrifice is a lesson to every weak 
will. But although Jesus took away 
the guilt of sin, each soul must grow 
strong against new indulgence, against 
old habits, and there is no better way 
of doing that than by refusing to self 
even what is lawful, by making self 
take some pain because it has in- 
dulged in too much pleasure, in a 
word, by making oneself a sacri- 
fice, another lamb like to Jesus, the 
true Lamb of God, Who was dumb 
in the hands of the shearers. Whose 
blood has reddened the gates of every 
sanctified soul, \\Tio is offered for you 
daily on the altar of the ^lass and comes 
to you daily if so you wish, as your food 
and comfort and enduring strength. 
[60] 



WOLF • LION • LAMB 

PRAYER 

ll/fOST hind Jesus, who art the 
^^^ Good Shepherd, guard thy 
flock against all adversaries, he 
they ravenous wolves or roaring 
lions, and lavish upon us true 
knowledge against deceits, sure 
strength against violent passions, 
that with all our sins taken away, 
our souls may he made white to 
thy look and we he deemed worthy 
to pass from the hanquet of the 
altar to the heavenly supper of the 
Lamb. 



[61] 



HOME, SCHOOL AND CHURCH 

HOME 

%j ESUS loved home and blessed 
home. He gave ten times as much of 
His life to home as He gave to the 
world. Think of the homes He filled 
with joy during the three short years 
of His public life. He sent the leper 
home. The leper was an outcast, was 
shunned and kept at a distance, liv- 
ing in caves and grave-yards. Jesus 
cleansed the lepers and sent them home. 
"Take up thy bed," Jesus said to the 
man sick of palsy, ''and go into thy 
house." He was one of a multitude 
which wended its way homeward, able 
to talk or able to see or able to hear 
and all filling some house with peace 
and merriment. How death destroys a 
home! JNIany a familv separates at the 
[62] 



HOME • SCHOOL • CHURCH 

grave never to come together again. 
Jesus drove off the arch destroyer of 
homes, and sisters received their brother 
and the father his child and the widowed 
mother her only son. Worse still 
for the unity of the home is the sinner. 
The memory of the dead remains and 
is spoken of. The disgrace of the 
home is never mentioned and is buried, 
as far as may be, in oblivion. Jesus 
brought the sinners home. Magdalen 
is loved and honored, and not a word or 
even a thought is given to the past. 
She is back and it is home again. The 
Prodigal sits down once more with his 
father and receives a hearty welcome 
from all, yes, even from his brother, if 
not on the first day, at least, so let us 
hope, on the next or the day after. 

Jesus was indeed a home-maker, and 
Jesus is the same to-day as in Pales- 
tine. There is not a broken home any- 
where which He is not able to mend and 
anxious to mend. Whatever is needed 
in your homes or in any homes you 

[63] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

know of, whether it be health or life or 
kindness or virtue, Jesus can give and 
does give to-day from His home on the 
altar. If He does not cure all sickness 
or suffering, it is because He can do 
better than cure it. He blesses your 
pain. He makes a prayer of your 
pain. By it He fills heaven with ran- 
somed souls and rewards you with fuller 
measures of eternal joy. If Jesus 
does not give back your dead, it is be- 
cause He is making a better home for 
all your loved ones whom He is calling 
to Himself one after another. And 
what was it brought the Prodigal home? 
"In my father's house," he cried, 
''bread abounds." That same thought 
has drawn many another sinner to the 
altar and so to innocence again and to 
the forgiveness and peace of home. 

But you will say, if Jesus makes 
homes, He breaks them too. Has He 
not spoken sternly, coldly, harshly of 
home? Did He not say? ''He who 
loves father or mother more than me, 
[64] 



HOME • SCHOOL ' CHURCH 

is not worthy of me." "He who hates 
not father and mother cannot be my 
disciple." It is true that Jesus uttered 
these words and others like them but 
those who live up to such teaching do 
not destroy homes. Jesus wished the 
homes to be united by duty and by 
God's will, not by selfishness. He who 
follows God's will is not a stranger to 
home wherever he goes. The hearts of 
those who so act are near to home and 
to all at home. It is not bodily pres- 
ence but presence of the heart which 
makes home and so it is that the nearer 
to God, the nearer to home. He who 
loves father and mother more than God, 
most frequently loves father and 
mother for his own sake. He seeks self 
and will love home as long as it is to 
his advantage. He who loves father 
and mother for the sake of God, never 
takes his heart away from home wher- 
ever his feet may stray. So if Jesus 
seems to break up homes, it is only that 
He may unite them better, as a sur- 

[65] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

geon will break again a badly knitted 
bone that it may heal properly. He 
will not tolerate a life-long crippling 
in order to avoid a slight pain now. 

The Blessed Sacrament has always 
been a uniter. At the altar-rail we are 
all equal, all friends, all of one great 
family, all of God's home. Then too 
the Bread of the altar teaches you how 
God's will can make a home. The 
separate grains of wheat are crushed 
and cleansed of chaff and ground to- 
gether and kneaded together and baked 
until they become one, fair, white host 
whose substance Jesus makes His own. 
If each grain locked itself up in a hard, 
unyielding case, it would be almost as 
difficult to make bread of wheat as of 
hickory nuts. Selfishness is the shell 
which keeps the home divided. The 
will of God is the mill of God which 
will grind out all selfishness and leave 
the white kernel ready to blend into 
bread. Jesus in His altar home will 
make your home one if vou unite around 
[66] 



HOME • SCHOOL • CHURCH 

His table and make God's will the rule 
of life. 

SCHOOL 

Jesus went to school mostly, we be- 
lieve, at His mother's knee, but one day 
He went away to school. He left 
mother and foster-father. He did not 
tell them where He was going. He 
permitted their hearts to be filled with 
anxiety and grief. It was a moment 
of tremendous importance in the life of 
the Christ Child when He remained in 
the temple and took His place in the 
school-room there. On that occasion it 
was that Jesus uttered His first re- 
corded words. These words were 
spoken at school and brought a blessing 
upon school. The first Christian school 
was then opened in sorrow and sacrifice, 
consecrated to the work of God, and 
marked out by heaven to be the place 
where Jesus first told us that He was 
engaged in the things of the Father. 

All knowledge, as the old saying has 

[67] 



.WATCHING AN HOUR 

it, makes a bloody entrance, but no 
knowledge inflicts keener pain than the 
knowledge of God's will. When you 
make up your mind to be a pupil in that 
school, you must be prepared for all that 
Jesus endured when He went away 
to school. jNIisunderstandings, com- 
plaints, suffering for self and others, 
loss of home and parents and friends, 
gloom and wanderings in the night and 
bitter tears, these and a hundred other 
sorrows will be on one hand, and on the 
other will be just the will of God, the 
business of the Father. Oh, if Jesus 
were not now in our temples, you would 
find the daily lesson of God's will a 
hard one but you know that He is there 
to meet you when you seek Him sor- 
rowing and He is willing and anxious 
to go down with you into your homes 
and into your lives comforting and con- 
soling you after every sacrifice you 
make for the business of the Father. 

Jesus kept a school. He was an at- 
tractive teacher. "Learn of me," He 
[68] 



HOME • SCHOOL * CHURCH 

said to alL "I am meek and humble 
of heart." Jesus was not fiery and ar- 
rogant like the Pharisees who were the 
teachers opposed to Him. Jesus was 
a patient and persevering teacher. 
Consider what pupils He had in His 
own friends and followers. Hundreds 
of times He repeated a lesson; hun- 
dreds of times they forgot it, but Jesus 
was patient with their dullness and per- 
severed despite their failures until He 
completed their education. Of a tax- 
gatherer He made an evangelist; of 
fishermen He made leaders of men and 
writers of wisdom; of all He made 
Saints and martyrs. Jesus was a tire- 
less teacher. For thirty years He 
taught the hard lessons of silence, ob- 
scurity and humility. Hungering in 
the bleak desert, parched upon hot and 
dusty roads, toiling up the steep hills 
or tossing on the stormy sea, everywhere 
and at all times Jesus kept open His 
school. Jesus was a fearless teacher. 
His pupils might disown Him or be- 

[69] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

tray Him; His enemies might oppose 
Him on every side, might calumniate 
Him, might torture, insult and slay 
Him, still Jesus kept open His school 
and, rising from the grave where He 
was thought to be buried, He ordered 
His apostles and disciples to go and 
teach all nations. The school of Jesus 
was always to be kept open. 

Yes, you know that Jesus has not 
closed His school and you have felt that 
He is still teaching with all the charm 
and patience and perseverance and tire- 
lessness and courage with which He 
kept school in Palestine. Some of His 
pupils come but rarely to Him and 
master but few of His lessons. Others 
come day by day to the school of Jesus, 
it is narrow but world-wide ; it is hidden 
but everywhere. All find the teacher 
attractive. If He teaches humility. He 
is practising it Himself. If He gives 
the lesson of patience, He is a model of 
that difficult virtue. If He asks His 
pupils to be kind and charitable, they 
[70] 



HOME • SCHOOL • CHURCH 

will not refuse to learn that lesson be- 
cause Jesus, their teacher, is infinitely 
kind and divinely charitable. He re- 
fuses Himself to no one and to no place. 
He goes to new friends and to old 
friends, to treacherous friends and to 
true ones. If any one does not receive 
all that Jesus offers, it is not the fault 
of the Teacher's generous kindness be- 
cause He gives Himself fully but rather 
the fault of the pupils because they will 
not receive Him at all or do not master 
all His lessons from lack of generosity. 

CHURCH 

When Jesus was found by His sor- 
rowing parents amidst the doctors of 
the temple, you see home, school and 
church united in one great scene of our 
Lord's life. As then, so on almost 
every other occasion, there was trouble 
when Jesus went to the church of His 
day. At His presentation Simeon ut- 
tered disturbing words of prophecy: 
"the ruin and destruction of many," ''a 

[71] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

sign of contradiction," and the occasion 
of a sword piercing His mother's soul. 
At twelve years of age Jesus went to 
the temple, breaking up a home, pain- 
ing mother and foster-father and filling 
all with wonder. The next recorded 
visit was made when Satan took Jesus 
and set Him upon a pinnacle of the 
temple. Later He visited the temple 
in person and drove out with lash in 
hand the buyers and sellers. His mir- 
acle. His teachings. His simple visits, 
all seemed to break in upon the solemn 
calm of that holy spot and upset places 
and persons. When Jesus went into 
synagogues throughout Palestine, there 
was the same disturbance. At Naza- 
reth His own townsmen hurried Him 
from their synagogue and wished to 
throw Him from a cliff. 

What was it that caused these mighty 
upheavals, these moral shocks which 
finally overthrew the temple entirely? 
It was the fact that the Church of that 
day had ceased to be the Church. The 
[72] 



HOME • SCHOOL * CHURCH 

house of God had become a den of 
thieves. The temple rejected the Mes- 
siah and cast forth its Savior. Yes, it 
endeavored to destroy the Son of God. 
You remember it was the representa- 
tives of the temple who persecuted Je- 
sus and plotted His death. You recall 
how Jesus compared His body to the 
temple, a body which might be de- 
stroyed but in three days would be built 
up again, and you know that one of the 
means used to effect the death of Jesus 
was that comparison. You have read 
too how the veil of the temple was rent 
when Jesus died. No more would He 
visit it. It was doomed and in a few 
years it would be levelled to the ground 
and would be forever the death-stone of 
a nation's apostasy, a lasting memorial 
of God's just anger. 

When you think of this struggle of 
Jesus with a power which had ceased to 
represent the will of God and had to be 
opposed and utterly removed, you will 
thank God that Jesus does not come 

[73] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

to your temples and your altars as He 
came of old. You see Him, not with 
lash in hand, not driving out cowards, 
not rending veils and dislodging stones, 
but coming as a God of peace and joy, 
allowing Himself to be borne here and 
there, drawing all to Himself and bless- 
ing all. Yet you are well aware that 
the Church is still a scene of conflict. 
You must fight your way to the Church 
through crowds of unbelievers or indif- 
ferent men and women. You must 
overcome sloth and rise superior to 
sneering ridicule. And when you have 
made your way inside the Church, you 
must by penance and confession fight 
your way up the Church aisles to the 
altar rail. Xor does the conflict then 
stop. You must fight ceaselessly to 
keep yourselves in the Church and be- 
fore the tabernacle and at the altar rail. 
The victory is worth it all. The peace 
of God will come to you. You will be 
the temples of the Holy Ghost. You 
will welcome to vour hearts the Prince 
[74] 



HOME • SCHOOL • CHURCH 

of Peace and make of them houses of 
prayer. 

PRAYER 

r ORD JESUS, Lion of the 

-^^ tribe of Juda, who hast told 
us to fear not because thou hast 
conquered the world, help us, we 
pray thee, in the never ceasing 
conflict which rages about our 
homes, schools and Church, that 
with thy families united and 
thy children rightly reared thy 
Church may continue to sanctify 
the souls of men and by waging 
the battles of time deserve to win 
the victorious crown of eternity. 



[75] 



READING, WRITING AND 
COUNTING 

READING 

JlIAVE you not read?" Jesus fre- 
quently asks those about Him. With 
that question He answers difficulties, 
removes doubts, teaches the highest 
truths. So it is Jesus recalls to the 
Jews the example of David, the law of 
Moses, the lessons of the prophets, the 
virtues of the patriarchs, and the word 
of God. The wisdom of God and the 
guiding providence of God were re- 
corded in the teaching and history of the 
sacred books of the Jews. Jesus did 
not set aside the Old Testament, but 
He added to it. The word of God in 
the new Church which Jesus founded 
was to be recognized in the living voice 
as well as in the dead page. "He who 
[76] 



READING • WRITING • COUNTING 

hears you, hears me/' said Christ to 
His apostles- ''If he will not hear 
the Church, let him be to thee as the 
heathen and the publican." To the 
Jews therefore Jesus said, "Have you 
not read?" To us He says, "'Have you 
not heard and read?" But in both cases 
it is an appeal to God's word and God's 
authority. It was God who spoke to 
the Jews from the written page: it is 
God who speaks to you in the printed 
volume of His Revelation or in the liv- 
ing voice of His Church. The answer 
in both cases should be the same, ''I 
have read and heed." "I have heard 
and I obey." God speaks, I believe; 
God commands, I act. Practical faith 
is the lesson taught by the repeated 
question of Jesus, "Have you not 
read?" 

You need an active, loving faith for 
all of God's revealed truth, but no- 
where is such a faith more necessary 
than towards the Blessed Sacrament. 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament comes 

[77] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

very near to man, being touched by 
man's hands, seen by man's eyes, pass- 
ing man's hj^s and becoming man's 
food. To believe in God who thunders 
His laws from a mountain and hides 
Himself away in places inaccessible is 
fairly easy, though not consoling, but 
to see God in a particle of bread, dis- 
solving upon the tongue, calls for a 
^ lively faith. The very condescension 
w^hich makes Jesus stoop down to our 
weakness makes it harder for our souls 
to raise themselves to God's infinite 
grandeur. The familiarity of the 
Blessed Sacrament, which in our times 
by daily Communion, and early Com- 
munion, has been made a greater fa- 
miliarity, is one supreme reason for the 
special necessity of faith towards Jesus 
in the tabernacle, and the sublimity of 
the mysteries connected wath the Blessed 
Sacrament requires too a practical 
faith. How the mind is bewildered by 
the wonders which cluster around the 
consecrated host! Jesus is there with 
[78] 



READING • WHITING • COUNTING 

His body and blood, with His soul and 
divinity; Jesus is there in the whole 
host and in every part of it; Jesus is 
there and at the same time in millions 
of other places. Although every sense 
bears witness to the presence of bread, 
the substance of that bread has disap- 
peared and has changed into the body 
and blood of Christ. Such are some of 
the marvellous mysteries of which the 
tabernacle is the home. 

You must then recall often to your 
minds the question Jesus put to the 
Jews, "Have you not read?'' You 
must have faith. God has spoken ; God 
is to be believed; God is to be obeyed. 
You have read how God prepared the 
world for the Blessed Sacrament by 
sending manna from heaven. You have 
read how Jesus promised to give His 
body to eat and His blood to drink. 
You have read that at the Last Supper 
Jesus said, "This is my body; this is my 
blood. Do this for a commemoration 
of me." You have read how century 

[79] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

after century holy men and learned men 
bore witness to that truth and explained 
it and proved it and died for it. You 
have read how the Church of Christ 
cast out those who denied that truth. 
You have read how one great writer 
has cried out, "Lord, if we are deceived 
in the mystery of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, you have deceived us.'* You 
have read all this and you too believe. 
Infinite power, infinite love are needed 
to give you God under the appearance 
of bread. You have heard and know 
that God has that infinite power and 
infinite love, and you believe that Je- 
sus is upon the altar, is on your tongue 
and finds a home in your heart. 

WRITING 

Did Jesus wTite? Xo writings of 
His remains to us. Jesus spoke and 
taught by word of mouth and ordered 
His apostles to preach, but we do not 
read that He ordered them to write. 
You remember, however, the one occa- 
[80] 



READING • WRITING • COUNTING 

sion upon which Jesus is said to have 
written. His enemies brought to Him 
a sinful woman. They had Httle mercy 
for her; they had less mercy for Jesus. 
They wished to place Him in such a 
position that He would, as His enemies 
thought, either be wanting in mercy or 
wanting in justice. If Jesus con- 
demned the sinner, where would be His 
love for the fallen? If Jesus refused 
to condemn the sinner. He would put 
Himself against the law of Moses. 
The wisdom of the Savior did not find 
it hard to avoid these extremes. He 
announced a principle which for all 
time to come, now as well as then, will 
save mercy without offending justice. 
The law against sin remains, but its ap- 
plication must be tempered by mercy. 
The enforcer of the law must remem- 
ber that he too is human. Listen to the 
wonderful rule which Jesus has given 
us, a rule which blends in one marvel- 
lous compound the sweetness of mercy 
with the severity of justice: "'He that 

[81] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

is without sin among you, let him first 
cast a stone." 

Just before and just after Jesus gave 
us all that lesson, He is described as 
stooping down and writing with His 
finger on the ground. Who can ever 
forget that writing of Jesus? The 
strange, the solemn, the mysterious set- 
ting in which Christ our Lord enshrined 
a bright jewel of merciful truth. Did 
Jesus write the sins of the accusers on 
the ground, showing them that there as 
often elsewhere He read the hearts of 
men? Some have thought so. If you 
believe Jesus wrote those sins, recall 
that they were written in sand, not like 
the condemnation of Baltassar inscribed 
upon the wall for his doom, but in the 
sand where the lightest wind of heaven 
might blot out the account. Perhaps 
you prefer to believe with others that 
Jesus did not write any sins, but simply 
stooped and wrote to show that He ig- 
nored the accusers or did not wish to 
set His searching glance upon them 
[82] 



READING • WRITING ' COUNTING 

that He might not embarrass them. It 
is in keeping with the rest of the scene 
that the writing of Jesus should be 
considered an act of kindness to the ac- 
cusers. So the writing of Jesus will 
recall to you always that your stained 
and sinful hands are not to grip and 
throw stones at those who have sinned, 
that you must be merciful to all, even 
to those who are trying to destroy you. 
Jesus wrote in the sand ; Jesus writes 
too in your souls. St. Paul says to His 
Corinthians: "You are the letter of 
Christ." They were the letters of 
Christ either because Christ was writ- 
ten there or because Christ wrote there. 
St. Paul had erased from the fleshy 
tablets of those pagan hearts all false- 
hood and vice and wrote there the truth 
and life of Jesus. Letters of friend- 
ship are full of friendship. St. Paul's 
Christians were letters of Christ be- 
cause their hearts were replete with 
Christ's example and teaching. In an- 
other sense, too, the Corinthians were 

[83] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

letters of Christ. "The Spirit of the 
living God" had impressed upon the 
hearts of the Corinthians all the Chris- 
tian virtues. The angels might see 
there as if branded in letters of fire, 
faith, hope and charity, mercy, justice 
and kindness, and a host of other pow- 
ers which equip all souls, made by grace 
to be the friends of God. As the Cor- 
inthians of old, you also are the letters 
of Christ. You listen, as you are now 
doing, to the lessons of His life and im- 
print them upon j^our hearts indelibly. 
You too have within you the Spirit of 
the living God writing there new vir- 
tues which make you more like Christ, 
or you are retracing in clearer letters 
virtues already gained. Grace comes 
to you through all prayer and all the 
Sacraments. But where especially are 
you the letters of Christ? Is it not at 
Communion? A letter brings as much 
of our friends to us as we can receive 
when they are absent. When your 
hearts welcome Christ in the Blessed 
[84] 



READING • WRITING ' COUNTING 

Sacrament, they are most precious let- 
ters, not holding a word or two of an 
absent friend but enshrining a guest 
from heaven. During those holy mo- 
ments ''the Spirit of the living God" 
is active and upon your spirits are in- 
scribed the virtues of Christ, virtues es- 
pecially of mercy and kindness to those 
who have been guilty of faults. May 
the hand of Christ write that lesson in- 
delibly on your hearts! 

COUNTING 

Counting and accounting were works 
which Christ our Lord understood very 
well. There was no secret of business 
unknown to Him. So His parables 
testify. Sometimes the counting of 
Jesus was most exact and that was 
whenever there was a question of jus- 
tice. Give to every man his penny is 
the teaching of one of Christ's parables. 
The cruel servant in another parable is 
sentenced to be cast into prison until 
he pays the whole debt. You remem- 

[85] 



WATCHIXG AN HOUR 

ber too how strict Jesus makes the mas- 
ter who gave his servants money to 
invest for him. Two servants doubled 
the amount given to them, but one 
made no use at all of what he had re- 
ceived. How angry the master was 
that his money had been buried in the 
earth, wasted when it should have been 
gaining interest! These are all pic- 
tures of Jesus when He is just. Poor, 
weak human nature shrinks with fear 
when it thinks of the justice of God and 
it would not care to consider Jesus in 
the Blessed Sacrament as a judge. 
Xor is Jesus a judge there in that home 
of infinite mercy, yet He exercises jus- 
tice there and He keeps account of the 
use you make of His talents. You 
could be doubling your capital at the 
altar-rail. You could be adding to the 
riches of God's grace and be preparing 
yourself to hear Jesus say, "Well done, 
thou good and faithful servant." But 
perhaps you are not making the full 
use you might of God's favors. You 
[86] 



READING • WRITING * COUNTING 

are not prepared with all the faith and 
hope and love you should have, and as 
Jesus is just. He gives you grace ac- 
cording to your dispositions. Perhaps 
your many Communions and visits and 
Masses find you still very imperfect. 
Jesus is just. He gives you grace ac- 
cording to your willingness to corre- 
spond and make use of what He gives. 
You must trade with the treasure en- 
trusted to you whether it is little or 
great. You must not discontinue vis- 
its or Communions because you do not 
feel better. Sanctity does not consist 
in feeling. To see your failings more 
clearly often means an increase of 
sanctity. Keep on despite discourage- 
ment. Don't run off and bury any 
talent. Use what you have and you 
will get more. 

If Jesus counts exactly and accu- 
rately when He is just, He seems to 
count another way when He is merciful 
and loving. God can be exacting in 
His justice with us because He is infi- 

[87] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

nitely wise and cannot make a mistake, 
but we who make mistakes must not be 
too exacting with one another. The 
Jews had a way of counting which the 
love of Jesus did not approve of. They 
said, "An eye for an eye; a tooth for a 
tooth." "No," replied Jesus; "you do 
not count as I wish. I say to you not 
to resist evil, but if one strike you on 
the right cheek, turn to him also the 
other." What a strange way too of 
counting Jesus had with converted sin- 
ners! "There shall be joy in heaven 
over one sinner that doth penance than 
upon ninety-nine just who need not 
penance." The arithmetic of Jesus 
seems to be wrong. He leaves ninety- 
nine in order to find one. And look 
what He does with five loaves. He 
feeds five thousand and even with all 
that generous abundance there is none 
of the exact measuring you see where 
each man has a penny, but it is rather, 
let five thousand have all they want and 
let there be plenty over and above to 
[88] 



READING • WRITING • COUNTING 

spare. In the Blessed Sacrament it is 
the love and mercy of Jesus which does 
the counting. How lavish is Jesus at the 
altar! From the Last Supper to the 
last Communion count, if you can, how 
many times Jesus has travelled the way 
He loves into the hearts of men. 
Think what it will be from now on. 
The little children will come in multi- 
tudes and throngs will flock daily to 
Communion. It is not now five loaves 
for five thousand, but one Bread of life 
for all men all the days of their lives. 
What has he received and what will he 
receive in return? Alas! nothing or 
worse than nothing, neglect, coldness 
and insult! That is the way Jesus 
counts: everything for us; worse than 
nothing for Himself. 

PRAYER 

T ORD of generous mercy and 
"*-^ loving justice, "who in the 
days of thy life taught us faith, 
kindness and generosity, bestow 

[89] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

upon US through the most wonder- 
ful of all thy sacraments these 
virtues in their full perfection that 
even in the simplest actions which 
we daily perform, we may he 
mindful of thy life and lessons 
and merit the everlasting rewards 
of thy love. 



[90] 



Y. 



GRASS, REEDS AND THORNS 

GRASS 



OU will not see many descriptions 
of places in the Gospels. The word of 
God is concerned more with persons 
than with places. Why then do you 
find the evangelists picking out a 
trivial bit of scenery to serve as a back- 
ground for one of our Lord's deeds? 
Matthew halts his story to say there 
was grass in a certain place ; Mark tells 
us the grass was green; John adds that 
the grass was abundant. You will say 
it was spring-time and that the fresh, 
new grass was sprouting luxuriantly 
with no sign of any withering to come. 
Perhaps the evangelists wished to point 
out the time; perhaps the spot was a 
fertile one in a desert place, an oasis 
near a spring where the people might 

[91] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

slake their thirst after the miraculous 
meal. Then again it may be that the 
marvel which was wrought in the place 
fixed the grass of that landscape in the 
apostles' memories. The spot where 
the green grass grew in abundance was 
the spot on which the five thousand 
were fed with the multiplied loaves and 
fishes. It might be too that our Lord 
who had looked with pity on the hun- 
gry crowds wished to comfort their 
bodies, wearied like wandering sheep, 
following Him, their Shepherd. Did 
the apostles record this patch of green 
because it was there Jesus with thought- 
ful kindness told them to have the peo- 
ple sit down? It might very well be. 
Jesus taught lessons from the grass of 
the field where He ^vished you to learn 
how the Providence of God watches 
over you. He looked above His head 
to the wayward birds of the air and 
down beneath His feet to the grass of 
the field. God watches over high and 
low, over birds and grass. The spar- 
[92] 



GRASS • REEDS * THORNS 

row does not fall except God permits 
it, and look how God adorns the grass 
of the field which to-day is and to-mor- 
row is not! God showers splendid fa- 
vors in abundance upon the least of 
His creatures. In the Old Testament 
as well as the New the grass of the field 
is looked upon as the type of all that 
is weak and perishing, "'All flesh is 
grass and all the glory thereof as the 
flower of the field. The grass is with- 
ered and the flower is fallen." That is 
the sad lament of Isaias, and St. James 
at the end of the New Testament 
teaches to the rich the lesson of hu- 
mility from the same grass. *'The 
sun rose with a burning heat and 
parched the grass, and the flower 
thereof fell off, and the beauty of the 
shape thereof perished ; so also shall the 
rich man fade away in his ways." Our 
Lord, however, in His kindness drew 
more consoling lessons from the grass 
of the field. Look, He tells you, at 
the most insignificant of the things 

[93] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

which God has made. You may be 
like the green grass because j^our hfe 
is lowly, because your life is brief, be- 
cause you will soon wither away and 
cease to be, but be not of little faith, 
God cares and God watches over you. 
Whenever you look at the grass on 
the ground, you should recall the mul- 
tiplication of the loaves ; you should re- 
call the watchful care of the Father. 
You cannot know the rich, sudden 
growth of Eastern vegetation and its 
equally sudden withering, but you 
have seen the blades green in the show- 
ers of spring and burnt brown in the 
pitiless glare of the parching summer, 
and both seasons will teach you Christ's 
lesson and bring back to your minds 
Christ's marvelous kindness. He looks 
with pity on you now and He still 
blesses for you and multiplies a still 
more marvelous bread. All flesh of 
man is grass, but the flesh of the Son 
of INIan is meat indeed and He that 
eateth of It shall not perish forever. 
[94] 



GRASS • REEDS * THORNS 

REEDS 

Jesus had reason to remember the 
reeds of His native land. It was said 
of His gentleness that the bruised reed 
He would not break. He would be 
tender with it and care for it as His 
Father cared for the grass. But how 
did the reed treat Jesus? The reed 
turned upon its kind benefactor and 
bruised Him. The reed of the East is 
no fragile, weak thing such as you see 
growing in the swamps or by the side 
of streams. The Eastern reed grows 
to a great height and its stem, though 
hollow and brittle, is hard and may deal 
a severe blow. The reed in the hand 
of a cruel soldier struck the crowned 
head of Jesus and drove the points of 
the thorns deeper into His flesh. The 
reed played the part of a king's sceptre 
and brought ridicule upon Jesus, mock- 
ing Him who was the only true King 
of the Jews. The reed lifted up a 
sponge filled with gall and pressed it 

[95] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

to the lips of the dying Jesus. The 
reed took strange ways of being grate- 
ful to Ilim who would not break it 
when bruised. 

Our Lord knew the character of the 
reed and despised its character. He 
would be merciful to its bruises; He 
would despise its weakness. If you are 
to be of those whom Jesus would 
praise, you must not be a reed. When 
Jesus praised John the Baptist, He de- 
clared that John was no reed. ''What 
went you out to see? A reed shaken 
by the wind?" The Jews would find the 
banks of the Jordan lined with tall 
reeds, waving their silken tassels high up 
in the air. The Jews would see the light- 
est breath of air sway the tall, thin 
canes and would see them driven flat to 
the ground before the blasts of the 
wind. But on the banks of the Jor- 
dan the Jews would not find John the 
Baptist like a reed. The Baptist grew 
up in the dry, rock soil of the desert. 
He had the stoutness of hardy soil and 
[96] 



GRASS • REEDS * THORNS 

rigid training. He was not the plant 
of the marsh, the growth of one warm 
season. No breeze could sway the 
tough fibres of the desert tree; no gale 
could bring its branches low. Herod 
might lop that noble body; he would 
never frighten John's undaunted soul or 
sway it a hair's breadth from the line 
of duty and right principles. 

The reed is the type of unstable 
characters; it is the type of ungrateful 
characters. What does Christ from 
His tabernacle look out to see? Reeds 
shaken by the wind; reeds bruised; 
reeds mocking Him, reeds striking the 
thorn deeper into His head or pressing 
the bitter potion to His lips? Jesus 
has pitied your poor bruised souls in 
His mercy when in His justice He 
might have crushed them. And have 
you been a mockery to your benefactor? 
Will the King of the Altar find in you 
the hollow symbol of Kingship, a yield- 
ing reed, or rather a mace of gold which 
becomes the hand of the King of 

[97] 



THATCHING AX HOUR 

Kings? When you come to touch Je- 
sus in the Blessed Sacrament, will there 
be drippings of gall there instead of 
the honey sweetness of a virtuous soul? 
What does Jesus look out to see? 
Reeds or other forerunners like John, 
the Baptist? 

THORXS 

If reeds have a bad reputation in 
Scripture, thorns have a worse reputa- 
tion. Thorns are useless; thorns are 
destructive; thorns are fit only for the 
flames. ''Beware of the false proph- 
ets," cries Jesus in the Sermon on the 
JNIount. ''By their fruits you shall 
know them. Do men gather grapes of 
thorns or figs of thistles?" You must 
be good to do good. If you are vines 
you will produce grapes; if you are 
thorns, you will grow the deadly thorn 
and will be cut down and cast into the 
fire. You are in that case false proph- 
ets, professing Christ but practising 
what is against Christ. Thorns are un- 
[98] 



GRASS • REEDS * THORNS 

fruitful of good, but, worse still, they 
are destructive of good in others. ''He 
that reeeiveth the seed among thorns is 
he that heareth the word, and the care of 
this world and the deceitfulness of 
riches choketh up the word and he 
hecometh fruitless," You would have 
to be farmers and farmers in Palestine 
to understand fully the teaching of our 
Lord in this place. When He uttered 
those words. He could point to the 
wheat-field right before the eyes of His 
hearers and show how the matted 
thorns by their rank, rapid growth had 
entirely choked the blades of wheat and 
the golden grain and the future bread. 
Jesus looks from those fields into the 
soil of your hearts where He is ever 
sowing good seed, and He fears and 
sorrows as He thinks of the fate of His 
seed. The cares of life outnumber 
His seed; the cares of life grow faster 
than Christ's seed. Loves, hates, de- 
sires, hunger and thirst, rivalry, anx- 
ieties, fears, these are the sharp thorns 

[99] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

which grow thickly in the heart. The 
word which Jesus sows must struggle 
hard to grow up to the golden wheat. 
It is folly to look for grapes on thorns ; 
it is a miracle to find God's wheat 
among the world's thorns. 

Thorns played a more deadly game. 
Thorns wind themselves around the 
good grain in your hearts; thorns wind 
themselves around your Savior's head, 
and Jesus would rather the thorns be 
on His head than in your hearts. In- 
deed Jesus permitted the sharp points 
to press into His flesh that He might 
blunt their points and check their 
growth in your flesh. JMen do not, it 
is true, gather grapes from thorns, but 
the cruel hands which wove that pierc- 
ing crown came nearest of all men to 
finding grapes on thorns. Those in- 
deed were thorns w^hose points were 
red with the wine of Christ's blood; 
those were thorns under whose pressure 
the grapes of Redemption spurted out 
the vintage of God's justice. 
[100] 



GRASS • REEDS • THORNS 

Oh, thorns surely deserve the flames! 
Are you growing any thorns? Jesus 
here in the Blessed Sacrament is eager 
to shed the sweet and warming wine of 
His blood within your souls, but let it 
not be a vain shedding. Cares of life 
you must have, because you must live; 
but cares must not become thorns. 
Cares of life must not multiply to the 
exclusion of the cares of God. Cares 
of life must not sharpen into worries 
that sting and wound, and, in center- 
ing attention on their pangs, sway the 
thoughts from God. Your hearts will 
hearken to St. Paul. "The earth," he 
says, "that drinketh in the rain which 
cometh often upon it and bringeth 
forth herbs meet for them by whom it 
was tilled, receiveth blessing from God. 
But that which bringeth forth thorns 
and briers is reprobate and very near 
unto a curse, whose end is to be burnt. 
But, my dearly beloved, we trust bet- 
ter things of you and nearer to salva- 

[101] 



WATCHING AX HOUR 

tion. For God is not unjust that He 
should forget your work." 

PRAYER 

Jl/TOST bountiful Jesus, Lord 
'^ ^ of the earth and all that it 
jyroduces, thou tcho hast given to 
mankind through the grain of the 
wheat and the juice of the grape 
the most precious of all gifts, help 
lis, ungrateful sinners, to put to 
such use the numberless creatures 
of thy bounty that our souls be 
made holy and thy name be hal- 
lowed by every growth of field and 
woodland. 



[102] 



M 



FOXES, DOGS AND SWINE 
FOXES 



.ANY a man will not hesitate to 
apply to another the first word of 
abuse that may be uppermost in his 
mind, and many a man is right per- 
haps once in a thousand times. Christ 
as God had God's infinite wisdom, and 
as man had as much of that wisdom as 
the designs of the Incarnation and Re- 
demption permitted. Knowledge is 
sparing in abuse where ignorance and 
hatred is lavish in it. It will surprise 
you to hear our Lord call Herod a fox, 
but you will be certain that no mistake 
was made in so calling Herod, and you 
will be certain it was a virtuous and nec- 
essary act to call him a fox. History 
tells that Herod's cunning and duplic- 
ity, Herod's selfish knavery and dark 

[103] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

cowardly ways, deservedly earned for 
him the title of fox. The fox, you see, 
had no better name among the farmers 
of Palestine then than it has to-day. 
Jesus put Herod low down among men 
in giving him the name of fox. Jesus 
put Himself even lower when He de- 
clared that in one respect He was worse 
off than the fox. Bad as the fox was, 
it had a place it might call home, a 
hole in the ground where it could hide 
and take its rest, but Jesus had no 
home, no place to lay His head. Why 
did Jesus declare Himself worse than 
the fox? He wished to test the sincer- 
ity of one who cried, ''Master, I will 
follow whithersoever you shall go." 
"I have no place to go," said Jesus in 
reply. "If you will follow me, you 
may not have even a hole in the ground 
to creep into. Are you ready to live 
worse than the foxes? Then, come 
and follow me." Did such a dismal 
prospect frighten away the man who 
made so generous an offer? We hope 
[104] 



FOXES • DOGS • SWINE 

and pray it did not. If he followed 
Christ, He found, as you will find, that 
the following of Christ is a source of 
true content even when board and 
lodging are very uncertain. Assuredly 
you often think of what our Lord said 
of the foxes when you look at His dark 
and narrow home on the altar. Into 
that darkness Jesus must often retire. 
Far more does He prefer to be out of 
those restricted quarters, to be lifted 
aloft for your adoration, to move 
through the air bringing you a blessing 
or to be passed over the altar-rail to 
the tongues and hearts of His follow- 
ers. Yet for long intervals Jesus is 
hidden in darkness; for short intervals 
only does He move in the light. Into 
the shadows, however, your prayers, 
your love, your wishes, your thanks 
and your regrets go from your warm, 
believing and loving hearts and not a 
single feeling is lost or strays in that 
obscure recess. Your heart's fondest 
wish and your mind's most fleeting 

[105] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

thought find their way to where Jesus 
lays His head upon the altar. In His 
mortal life Jesus laid His head any- 
where that His search for souls led 
Him; on the sands of the desert, upon 
the mountain-top by night, upon the 
hard plank of the tossing boat, upon 
the rough wood of the cross. In His 
Eucharistic life Jesus is equally apos- 
tolic in following the ways of men, and 
wherever man may be in the mountain 
or in the valley, on sea or land, there 
will be Jesus in the dark shadows of 
His little home. 

If you think of the haunts of foxes, 
when you look at the tabernacle, ah, 
what will you say of the millions of 
other places where Jesus must lay His 
head? Did He think of the hearts of 
men when He spoke of the foxes and 
their holes in the ground? Did He 
think of going into the hearts of men 
to lay His head? The fox may make 
a nest in the rocks or burrow deep into 
the clay, but Jesus has harder, colder, 
[106] 



FOXES • DOGS • SWINE 

darker spots to travel to and to rest 
in than the fox. The fox will not run 
to its enemy, but Jesus will. The fox 
will not stay where everything is re- 
pugnant to it, but Jesus will. The 
hearts of mankind — alas even your 
hearts — are sometimes worse than a 
hole in the ground and yet Jesus goes 
there and abides there and there lays 
down His head to take a rest. 

DOGS 

Dogs were not among the Jews made 
the pets and companions of man as they 
are in modern times. Dogs were the 
scavengers and lived on the refuse of 
the village. It was the last indignity 
offered to the unholy Jezabel that her 
body was mangled by dogs, "Am I a 
dog?" asked Goliath in rage when 
David came against Him with a staif . 
When our Lord would picture to us the 
utter misery of Lazarus, He tells us 
that as he lay at the gate, the dogs 
came and licked his sores. Whether 

[107] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Lazarus was too helpless to drive them 
away or whether they alone showed him 
pitiable kindness in acting as they did, 
in either case Lazarus was in the low- 
est state of degradation. Sinners of 
the most guilty type are called dogs by 
St. John at the end of his Apocalypse. 
In heaven are the blessed that have 
washed their robes in the blood of the 
lamb. They 'liave a right to the tree 
of life and may enter in by the gates 
into the city." Then John gives a list 
of those who are outside of the heav- 
enly city. "Without are dogs and 
sorcerers and unchaste and murderers 
and servers of idols and everyone that 
loveth and maketh a lie." The first 
among those that have not washed their 
robes in the blood of the lamb are dogs. 
Dogs have become in the Church the 
type of all unworthy communicants. 
''The bread of the Lord is not to be 
given to dogs," sings St. Thomas in 
his hymn for Corpus Christi. There 
is only one thing which puts a com- 
[108] 



FOXES * DOGS • SWINE 

municant in that unworthy class, — ^that 
thing is unrepented mortal sin. You 
have never approached Jesus with a 
soul unwashed by the blood of the lamb. 
You will never do so, but your love 
and devotion should be all the greater 
if even one unworthy Communion had 
been made since first Jesus became our 
bread. You will not sit unmindful at 
your banquet like another Dives if your 
Lord and Savior is the Lazarus to 
whose wounds the roving dogs have 
touched their tongues. 

The term dog is more offensive than 
fox. A man might find some credit in 
being called a fox ; he would be fiercely 
indignant if he were called a dog. To 
this day the Mohammedans call the 
Christians dogs. That is perhaps the 
most opprobrious title the infidel can be- 
stow. Consider all this and then think 
of the time when Jesus applied the 
word, indirectly, at least, to a woman 
who has come down the ages as the 
heroine of persevering prayer. No one 

[109] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

had more discouragement than she, but 
she triumphed over all difficulties. 
She was a gentle woman of Chanaan 
and came crying after Jesus. To her 
first cry for help our Lord answered 
not a word. The snub of His silence 
did not stop her. Then the apostles 
turned on her. "Send her away," they 
said. The opposition of the apostles 
did not restrain her. Then our Lord 
expressed a refusal. ^'I give favors 
only to the Jews; I am sent but to the 
lost sheep of the house of Israel." 
The refusal was of no avail against her. 
She followed Jesus into a house where 
He hid from her. She found Him and 
adored Him, still crying, ''Lord help 
me." To refusal was now added what 
seemed insult. ''It is not good, said 
the Lord, to take the bread of the chil- 
dren and cast it to the dogs." The 
Syrophenician woman was a dog! 
Cruel, harsh words! Surely this 
woman will now cease praying. Ah, 
no! If Jesus was apparently severe, 
[110] 



FOXES • DOGS • SWINE 

He knew the heart before Him could 
bear that severity. Her prayer rose 
triumphant over all obstacles. She 
would be a dog; she would not ask for 
bread; she would lap up the crumbs 
which fell from the table, because she 
was a mother and had a mother's heart 
full to breaking with a mother's love, 
because she had a daughter sick at home 
and what mattered it to her that she 
were the sorriest beast ever chased from 
a door-way if only she had one desire 
satisfied, if only Jesus would cure her 
child. Ah, Jesus saw that mother's 
heart from first to last, and He gave 
to her her heart's desire and crowned her 
with glory for all time. ^'O woman, 
great is thy faith; be it done to thee as 
thou wilt." What do you say to that 
wonderful story? You have not to 
fight your way to the side of Jesus 
against rebuffs and opposition and in- 
sult. You have not been forced to cry 
out ceaselessly. You are of the sheep 
of the Good Shepherd. To vou has 

" [111] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

not been let fall a crumb from the ta- 
ble, but before you has been spread a 
banquet above all banquets, the Bread 
of the Lord Himself. Yet after all 
this bounty freely given, what is the 
judgment of Jesus upon you? Does 
He say to you? "]My children, great 
is your faith?" 

SWINE 

Lower than foxes, lower than dogs 
in the estimation of the Jews were 
swine. Swine were unclean animals 
which the Jews were forbidden to eat, 
which the ]Machabees would not touch 
though they knew they were to die for 
their refusal. Our Lord coupled dogs 
and swine together in the passage, part 
of whose vigorous teaching has passed 
into the language of the world: ''Give 
not that which is holy to dogs; neither 
cast ye your pearls before swine." 
Once in His life Jesus had something 
to offer to swine. He could not bestow 
a more fatal gift, and no doubt His 
[112] 



FOXES • DOGS • SWINE 

followers considered He could find no 
more fit recipient for the gift. Jesus 
was about to drive out from a possessed 
man the many devils who called them- 
selves a legion and at their request and 
His command the unclean spirits 
passed into the unclean animals and 
both rushed madly into the engulfing 
waters of the sea. Behold how clear 
is the teaching of Jesus: ^'Cast not 
pearls before swine.'' Yet, let us say 
it with all the reverence due to His 
boundless love, who has been the one 
that has been the greatest offender 
against this law of prudence? Is it not 
Jesus Himself? He had no pearl of 
greater price than Himself and with 
lavish, spendthrift hands He threw 
Himself broadcast along the ways of 
life and before all manner of men. 
Who will say that Jesus did not know 
that He was casting the precious pearl 
of His body and blood before souls far 
more unclean than the uncleanest ani- 
mal? You will tell Jesus that in your 

[113] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

case no mortal sin will render you unfit 
for His priceless jewel and that your 
faithfulness will atone for many an- 
other into whom has j^assed the evil 
spirit, the legion, perhaps, which hur- 
ried the swine of the Gerasenes to de- 
struction. 

The Gospels, however, give you a 
more encouraging thought about swine 
than the one you have just been con- 
sidering, where they are spurning 
pearls and rushing seaward. Yet this 
new picture is not as much in itself con- 
soling as it is in the outcome. When 
our Lord wished to tell you that the 
Prodigal Son had fallen to the lowest 
depths of degradation, where did Jesus 
describe that the Prodigal was? The 
Prodigal w^as in a pig-sty and gazing 
with an envious eye on the pig-trough. 
"He sent him into his farm to feed 
swine. And he would fain have filled 
his belly with the husks the swine did 
eat." If the swine was unclean to the 
taste, what would the hearers of 
[114] 



FOXES • DOGS • SWINE 

Jesus think of the state of the 
Prodigal? The Prodigal would not 
merely touch swine; he wanted to 
be one with the swine and fight for a 
place at the trough. Dark, black pic- 
ture indeed! But the gloom of the 
night is deepest then when the day is 
about to dawn in the east. When the 
Prodigal had gone as low as the trough 
of the swine, his thoughts leaped back 
at once from darkness to daylight. He 
came to himself. ''I longed for a few 
husks; the servants of my father have 
plenty of bread. I am in a pig-sty and 
I might be in my father's house. I am 
tempted to bend to a trough when I 
might be seated at a table. I will rise 
up and go to my father's house." 
There in that picture and in that medi- 
tation and in that resolution you have 
the reason why Jesus threw His pearls 
before the world. His merciful Heart 
could not bear to see any soul wander- 
ing afar, sinking into the depths of 
shame, sating divine appetites on dis- 

[115] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

gusting garbage. In the house of Je- 
sus there is plenty of Bread, Bread of 
heavenly making, Bread of highest 
fiber, Bread too — oh, generous giver 
• — for the lowest of His servants, for the 
most ungrateful children, the most dis- 
sipated of wanderers, the most de- 
graded of fallen sinners, the worst and 
most foul of Prodigals. You have not 
been such. You come frequently, 
daily even, to partake of the Bread. 
But do you forget the many who still 
wander? Be glad when they come 
back. Do not receive them with the 
black looks of a jealous elder brother; 
but welcome them with joy and merry- 
making. ''Thy brother was dead and 
is come to life again; he was lost and 
is found." The swine have disgorged 
a pearl, purchased by Jesus at a great 
price. 



[116] 



FOXES • DOGS • SWINE 



PRAYER 

Jl/TERCIFUL and gracious 
•^ ^^ Father, "who hast given to us 
the many creatures of the world 
to administer to our every comfort, 
grant, we earnestly beg of thee, 
that by sin we do not sink below 
the level of the beasts but rather 
that by innocence we make our- 
selves less unworthy to eat of the 
Bread of thy table, and less un- 
willing to give frequent place in 
our hearts to thy presence, deserv- 
ing thu^ through thy favor to be 
welcomed to the banquet of our 
eternal home. 



[117] 



BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH 
BIRTH 



Wi 



HEX you celebrate your birth- 
days, do you think ever of your moth- 
ers, of their fears for you, of the hours 
of maternal martyrdom, of the anguish 
which God has permitted to be con- 
nected with the birth of every human 
being? Most likely you prefer to re- 
call the happiness of your mothers 
after your birth. Your coming was a 
bright, warm sun which made all threat- 
ening clouds disappear and left the sky 
full of sparkling joy. Yet the first 
exultation of motherhood which met 
you at your birth and which grew with 
your growth, should not make you for- 
get or be less grateful for the pangs 
which were the price of your birthday. 
Every birth must be paid for by pain, 
[118] 



BIRTH • MARRIAGE ' DEATH 

Is that principle true also of the birth 
of which Jesus speaks, the birth which 
is said to be, ''not of blood nor of the 
will of the flesh nor of the will of man 
but of God"? Must the soul endure 
pangs if it is to be born again of Christ? 
Yes, sacrifice attends every moment of 
the spiritual life and sacrifice is not ab- 
sent from the first moment. The souls 
of children which have no sin except 
what was put there by their first par- 
ent, Adam, suff*er no pain on relin- 
quishing that sjn in Baptism, It is not 
fair that they should suffer where they 
have not actually sinned. But all 
other souls that have actually sinned, 
must sacrifice and suffer to be born 
again from darkness to light. The re- 
morse which follows a fault, the bitter- 
ness of regret, the heart-chill of 
dissatisfaction, the humiliation of 
knowing our petty meanness, the cold, 
black ashes left after the fire of pas- 
sion, these are some of the pangs of 
spiritual birth. Then again, if the soul 

[119] 



WATCHING AN HOUE 

should still cling to what is unlawful, 
it cannot be born again to grace unless 
it breaks the bond of that unhallowed 
affection. The flesh may wince, the 
beast may still be restless, but the mas- 
ter-will resolves to abandon favorite 
haunts, rend unholy ties, relinquish sin- 
ful indulgence, uproot evil habits. 
Here you have a host of pains which 
surround your birth to God. Your 
souls' birthdays are all the more joyous 
because like the birthdays of your body 
they were accompanied by pain. In 
most cases it is before the Blessed Sac- 
rament that you are born again to 
Christ. Before His altar you grieve 
for your sins; facing His tabernacle 
you resolve to enter upon a new life ; at 
His altar-rail you celebrate the happi- 
ness of your souls' birthday by the re- 
ception of Communion. 

Birth, however, means more than 
pain and more than the long joy which 
follows pain. Birth is the beginning 
of a new life. You see in birth another 
[120] 



BIRTH • MARRIAGE * DEATH 

being come into existence and exercise 
newborn faculties in new practices. 
No matter how often the experience 
has happened before, you find always 
something attractive and fascinating in 
the first looks and first movements and 
first words of a child. A small por- 
tion of the earth's substance it is, in 
weight about ten pounds and it has 
been filled with life. An eye which in 
death and decay would pass into a few 
grains of dust, is fashioned into a won- 
derful instrument, flashes with bright- 
ness and color and is dimmed with 
sorrow or is resplendent with laughing 
joy. What a chasm between a heap of 
dust and a living eye! That chasm is 
spanned by hfe and birth. The same 
astounding truth is exemplified in every 
one of man's organs, in tongue and ear, 
in heart and brain. The soul trans- 
forms matter into man, gives life to 
lifelessness and then by birth gives free 
exercise to a host of wonderful pow- 
ers. 

[121] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

If it is a mangel that dust should see 
and speak, it is a still greater marvel 
that the soul of man should be born 
again. Xicodemus was astonished 
that one who is old should have to be- 
gin life again as an infant, when Jesus 
told him, ''unless a man be born again, 
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God." 
He ought to have been much more 
astonished at the truth which Jesus was 
then explaining. The birth of man to 
the Kingdom of God gives to body and 
soul far more startling powers than 
man's birth to life. The process of hu- 
man birth equips matter with faculties 
of sight and sj^eech and imagination, but 
the process of divine birth lifts the soul 
to surpassingly higher powers. That 
soul born again has been made a child 
of God, has put on a likeness to God, 
has won the right to inherit God, and 
has now the miraculous, the tremendous 
ability to behold, to enjoy and to pos- 
sess God forever. The eye of a picture 
cannot see; the lips of a statue cannot 
[122] 



BIRTH • MARRIAGE * DEATH 

speak. However perfect the works of 
art may be; however life-like they may 
appear, they cannot exercise the powers 
of life, because paint and marble are 
not living and they are separated 
widely from life. But the chasm be- 
tween your soul and the sight of God, 
between your bodies and the glory they 
will have when risen, is infinitely wider. 
Only God's power can span that dis- 
tance and give you now a new birth to 
the hf e of grace. Every new coming of 
grace and every increase of grace 
means a fuller possession of new and 
wonderful faculties. Even one Com- 
munion here and now, bringing to you 
the precious gift of grace, will have an 
effect in heaven and for eternity. 
Light is at this moment leaving some 
star in the sky and that ray will not be 
seen for years, but some day your eyes 
or the eyes of others will respond to that 
ray and enjoy its brightness. So every 
act of love and worship of the Blessed 
Sacrament imparts to your souls a new 

[123] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

splendor which will light up your minds 
and wills for eternity, flood with its ef- 
fulgence your risen bodies and unfold 
to you in clearer brilliancy the entranc- 
ing vision of the most High. 

MARRIAGE 

Marriage is the duty of most men 
and women. Without the home the 
world would not continue; all govern- 
ment would cease and the Church 
would no longer exist. Marriage 
makes the home. It was to be ex- 
pected that Jesus would bless the home 
and the state of marriage, and He did 
so generously. Jesus might have come 
to earth, as He will come to judgment, 
carried in the clouds of glory. He 
need not have entered into a home and 
by His presence sanctified the mar- 
riage of INIary and Joseph. It is true 
that Jesus had no earthly father. It is 
true that He Himself did not enter the 
marriage state and invited, although he 
[124] 



BIRTH • MARRIAGE • DEATH 

did not command, others, especially His 
apostles and priests, to follow Him in 
His life of virginity. Yet despite all 
this the acts and teaching of His life 
show how highly he appreciated mar- 
riage and the home. His first miracle 
was wrought at a wedding for the sake 
of a newly-married couple. His whole 
life might be compared to a marriage 
feast because He Himself said that He 
was like a bridegroom and that His 
followers would rejoice while He was 
with them in life. Jesus was fond of 
taking the marriage feast as the source 
of His parables and teachings. The 
wise and foolish virgins were brides- 
maids. The Kingdom of Heaven is 
likened to a King who made a marriage 
for his son. His apostles following 
the example of their Master showed a 
like esteem of the sacredness of mar- 
riage. St. Paul likens the union be- 
tween Christ and the Church to 
marriage. St. John in the Apocalypse 

[125] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

calls Heaven and its unending joys 
*'the marriage supper of the Lamb," 
"the great supper of God." 

All these actions and words of Christ 
and His apostles which show the holi- 
ness of the marriage state, have all been 
associated in the teaching of the Church 
with the Blessed Sacrament. The 
changing of water into wine at Cana 
was the promise and pledge of the 
greater change of wine into the blood 
of Jesus. The marriage feasts de- 
scribed by Jesus have been taken as 
types of the feast of the altar, and the 
need of preparations for Communion 
has been taught from the parable of 
the man who came to the banquet with- 
out the wedding garb. If heaven, too, 
is the great supper of God, Communion 
with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is 
its foretaste upon earth. In the spirit 
of such teaching the Church desires to 
bring marriage in close touch with the 
Blessed Sacrament. Mass and Com- 
munion should precede every marriage 
[126] 



BIRTH • MAKKIAGE * DEATH 

and on the bridal day the Church 
brings the bride and bridegroom close 
to the altar. The recent decrees of the 
Pope on frequent Communion makes 
special mention of married persons and 
invites them to receive often of the 
Holy Table, allowing no impediment 
beyond mortal sin and unworthy mo- 
tives and making the married no excep- 
tion to the general law. 

It is from the altar that you and your 
children will gain God's help to think 
of Christian marriage as Christ did and 
keep it sacred from the monstrous no- 
tions entertained of marriage outside 
the Catholic Church and beyond the 
range of the Blessed Sacrament. The 
holy and sublime union between Christ 
and His Church, as has been said, is 
likened by St. Paul to the union of 
marriage. Christ is the bridegroom 
and His Church is the spouse. The 
Bible used to be sacred with all Chris- 
tians, but now many who call them- 
selves Christians, reject all divine reve- 

[127] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

lation or distort its teachings. What 
will become of Christian marriage, that 
picture of the union of Christ and His 
Church? The prospect is truly appal- 
ling. The bond once permanent is 
broken for a thousand and one pre- 
texts. Divorce is rampant, especially 
in America. The most extravagant 
and dangerous theories about marriage 
are propounded and discussed with 
shameless freedom in books and in the 
daily press. The most sacred duties 
of matrimony are despised and ridi- 
culed. Where once a modest ret- 
icence veiled the union of father and 
mother, now an unblushing frankness 
discusses and debates everything unre- 
servedly even before the young and in- 
nocent. Where is this to end? No 
one knows. You must then draw 
nearer to the Blessed Sacrament which 
will give you grace to remain or become 
good fathers and good mothers. You 
must be better Catholics by frequent 
Communion, and in practice and in 
[128] 



BIRTH • MARRIAGE * DEATH 

opinion you must defend the Christian 
and Catholic ideal of marriage, the lov- 
ing union of husband and wife, the un- 
ending wedlock of father and mother, 
the fountain head and guardian of the 
Christian home, the hallowed type of 
the heavenly espousals of Christ and 
His Church. 

DEATH 

Birth is followed sooner or later by 
death. That is the shadow which falls 
on the cradle and goes on deepening 
as life advances. Man is always walk- 
ing in the valley of the shadow of death. 
He speeds with the swiftness of a train 
into the dark future and he knows that 
no matter how expert the care, how 
elaborate the precautions, how solid the 
assurance of a safe journey, he will 
somewhere in the black night before 
him be wrecked and doomed. The 
spectre of death looms up before every 
mortal. It is the cold grasp of that 
thought which is ever ready to grip the 

[129] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

warm, beating heart and chill it with 
apprehension. Jesus has let some 
light into the gloom. Jesus conquered 
death. At His word the tomb opened 
and the dead arose. He made us 
glimpse the sunrise of Easter through 
the lurid twilight of Calvary. He es- 
tablished the warmth of hope in your 
chilled hearts. He left Himself with 
you to comfort and encourage you 
against the uncertainty and terrors of 
the tomb. Jesus came to die, offered 
Himself willingly to die, hastened eag- 
erly to His death, and yet as He was 
hke us in all things, sin excepted. He 
trembled and grew gloomy as His hour 
approached. His soul became sorrow- 
ful even unto death. It was at that 
time when He was about to enter the 
thick shadows of the valley of His most 
horrible death, that He gave to you the 
promised bread of life. The Blessed 
Sacrament was Christ's last will and 
testament, His death-bed gift to man- 
kind which is always dying. It was 
[130] 



BIRTH • MARRIAGE • DEATH 

His will that His Last Supper should 
be your last supper. His own body 
was His viaticum, and it will be yours. 
Your hearts cling in love to the Blessed 
Sacrament now because it will be your 
friend at the last hour. 

Yet why should death have such ter- 
rors for you? Death is not the end; it 
is the beginning. Why should life be 
looked as a day darkening to twilight 
and not rather as a night whitening to 
dawn? Jesus would not for our sake 
lighten in the least His burden of sor- 
row and pain by allowing the joy of 
the Resurrection to solace His soul in 
His agony. But you need not do that ; 
you ought not. Jesus destroyed death. 
He came that you should have life and 
more abundantly. The blind instincts 
of the body may shrink and draw back 
from the open grave because the poor 
body will have to die and decay and go 
back to its dust for many years before 
it has its resurrection. But the soul 
sees with the keen vision of hope, and 

[131] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

the soul is made courageous with the 
boldness of faith, and the soul should 
rise in serene peace above all the little 
fears of flesh and blood. 

The tabernacle is the home of hope 
and courage against death. "I am the 
bread of life. I am the living bread 
which came down from heaven. If any 
man eat of this bread, he shall live for 
ever." Feed your souls on that bread 
and you will steel yourselves against 
the terrors of death. If your warm 
blood faints at the chill of death, re- 
vive it with that food. If your limbs 
shrink from the icy rigidity of the tomb, 
tell them that the undying strength of 
your souls will give back to every mem- 
ber its grace and movement by the 
power of the living bread. If your 
rudd)^ flesh shudders and trembles at 
the unsightliness of decay and the utter 
dissolution of dust, then do you, strong 
with the strength of the living Jesus, 
bid the weak body have no fear. Cor- 
ruption will pass into comeliness and 
[132] 



BIRTH • MARRIAGE * DEATH 

the black dust will gather again into 
the splendor of glory. If every mo- 
ment your bodies are dying, your souls 
are every moment increasing in life. 
Every Communion repairs the ravages 
of time upon you by clothing your souls 
in fairer beauty and with immortal 
vigor. If nature is dying, thanks to 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, grace 
is ever living. 

PRAYER 

WESJJS, the way, the truth and 
^^ the life, he with us all our days, 
as we come into the world, assume 
the world's duties and then pass 
once more beyond this world, and 
to make us serene with innocence 
and hope against the weakness and 
corruption of our bodies, con- 
stantly feed our immortal souls 
with the vivifying sweetness of thy 
living bread. 

[133] 



FOUNDATION, DOOR AND HOUSE- 
TOP 

FOUNDATION 

OI^XERITY is proved by trial not 
by protestations, "^^^ly call you me, 
Lord, Lord, and do not the things 
which I say?" asks Jesus. Such cries 
of piety may be warm in their utter- 
ance. They may ring with a momen- 
tary earnestness but the earnestness 
passes with the passing of the sounds. 
The sparks struck from the coldest and 
hardest flint are very hot and will burn 
intensely for an instant, but then they 
are no more. Jesus looked for no mere 
words. His serv^ice was one of deeds, 
and the one who gave such service, Je- 
sus likened to "a man building a house 
who digged deep and laid the founda- 
tion upon a rock." What will reveal 
[134] 



FOUNDATION * DOOR • HOUSETOP 

to all whether you are building on a 
rock? Will it be the ornaments you 
put upon the house? Will it be the 
paint, the carving, the mere external 
beauty? All that is good if the house 
will last. All is in vain if your house 
is on the sands. The castles in the 
clouds are gorgeous and brilliant, but 
their foundations are in the light air 
and the passing sunlight. Cloud pal- 
aces collapse in a second. What of 
your prayers and songs and sighs be- 
fore Christ in the Blessed Sacrament? 
Nowhere more than in the presence of 
the Blessed Sacrament do you find 
greater beauty of flower and ornamen- 
tation, nowhere such fragrant and va- 
riegated blossoms. Behold the carved 
and shining marble, the blaze of lights 
on gleaming candelabra, the precious- 
ness of gold, silver and jewels. These 
you give to the Blessed Sacrament and 
you do well. The riches of nature and 
the glories of art are there not devoted 
to the idle gratification of vanity. 

[135] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Give all that to Jesus and more, but do 
not stop there. Sing but be sincere. 
Pray but do not forget to practise. 
Vest the altars with beauty but do you 
"wear the white flower of a blameless 
life." Let goodness of living go with 
the gold of j^our giving. Jesus wishes 
His Church to last forever, and He 
built it upon a rock that the gates of 
hell might not prevail against it. If 
you too will last and withstand the 
gates of hell, say indeed, 'Xord, Lord," 
with all the fervor you can; sing, 
''Lord, Lord," with ghstening eyes and 
thrilhng voice and heart of fire, but add 
to all that the quiet persistency of good 
deeds. A foundation is not seen, it is 
not heard, but it is always doing its 
work of safeguarding the building. 
Show that you have built solidly your 
devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment by living a life of virtue, which 
may be hidden and silent but will be 
the test of your sincerity and the proof 
that you are persevering with Jesus. 
[136] 



FOUNDATION * DOOR ' HOUSETOP 

But what is this rock whose exist- 
ence is revealed by good deeds ? What 
is the foundation upon which you 
should build? St. Paul tells you: 
"Other foundation no man can lay but 
that which is laid: which is Christ Je- 
sus." Jesus is the foundation upon 
which you must build because Jesus is 
above all the ''author and finisher of 
our faith." In the Blessed Sacrament 
you have a cluster of wonders which 
bid you rest firmly on Christ. Some- 
times in your thoughts the idea of the 
Real Presence comes home to you with 
a startling clearness which is over- 
whelming. Commonly the words you 
apply to Communion and Mass have 
become less striking from constant 
usage. But imagine how amazing 
were the truths about the Blessed Sac- 
rament when first expressed. Put 
yourself in the place of the apostles 
when they sat at supper, and Jesus took 
the bread they had eaten all their life 
and by blessing it and uttering four 

[137] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

words made that Bread into His own 
Body. That was a test for their faith. 
They however had the living Jesus be- 
fore them to help their faith. In Him 
they believed and in Him they felt se- 
cure. Should some one stop you and 
suddenly ask you, after Communion, 
*'Have you just eaten the Lord Jesus 
Christ? Is a piece of bread inside of 
you God Almighty?" you would cer- 
tainly be startled. If the news came 
that your father, mother or relative, 
who had died years ago, had suddenly 
entered the next room, you would not 
take it as a matter of course, as you 
perhaps do, when you think that God 
has just come upon the altar. Some 
day the immensity of the marvels in the 
Blessed Sacrament may bewilder and 
almost numb you with their tremendous 
demands on your belief. Then you 
will have to rest with all the strength of 
your soul on the foundation, which is 
Christ Jesus. Jesus is God; Jesus is 
the author of the Blessed Sacrament; 
[138] 



FOUNDATION * DOOR • HOUSETOP 

Jesus gives you His Word for the won- 
derful truths. You are dazed; you 
cannot see or realize such stupendous 
facts. You need not realize them; in- 
deed it is impossible to do so, but your 
faith will withstand the sweep of that 
violent flood of wonder because you 
have built your faith upon the founda- 
tion, which is Christ Jesus. 

DOOR 

The door of home awakens sad or 
happy memories for all of you. The 
door marks where the world begins and 
the home ends. On your return from 
a long absence you were glad to see the 
door of home opening. On your de- 
parture to work or vacation the last 
sight of the door filled you with a mo- 
mentary regret. It may have been the 
lot of some of you to have been forced 
to leave father and mother and family 
forever, and perhaps the sad echoes of 
the closing door still jar your ears with 
aching memories. Oh, indeed the old 

• [139] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

home-door means much by its opening 
and closing! When you knocked upon 
it, you looked to greet the smile of a 
loved one, or may be you recall the day 
that the voice and welcome were not the 
ones you hoped for. At the door you 
shook hands with friends when you 
went forth to life and its duties, rarely 
or perhaps never again to recross that 
threshold. 

There are serious thoughts cluster- 
ing around the doors of your homes, but 
note that the thoughts around another 
door, the door of your hearts, are more 
serious still, serious with the responsi- 
bilities of time, serious with the destiny 
of eternity. Your hearts must open to 
Jesus here or they will not hereafter 
open the door which leads to Jesus in 
heaven. ''Behold I stand at the door 
and knock. If any man shall hear my 
voice and open to me the door, I will 
come in to him and will sup with him 
and he with me." What could be 
more gracious than that! Are you lis- 
[140] 



FOUNDATION * DOOR * HOUSETOP 

tening in the home of your heart? 
Don't you hear the knock? You speak 
of the tabernacle as the home of Jesus 
but you would do better to call it His 
temporary resting-place. Jesus does 
not come to the tabernacle to abide 
there as in His home. The home of 
Jesus is your heart. Listen then and 
you will hear Him say, "Behold I 
stand at the door and knock." You 
would know the knock of mother or 
father, of husband or wife, of child or 
friend. Do you not hear the insistent, 
repeated knocking of Jesus? What is 
your answer to Jesus ? The closed door 
or the open door? 

Alas, if you will not open to Jesus 
when He comes to your door, Jesus 
will not open to you when you come to 
His door. The parable of the wise and 
the foolish virgins is a sad story and 
the saddest fact in it is the door forever 
closed. Remember it was a joyous 
day, the day of a wedding. The 
bridesmaids were chosen so carefully. 

[141] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

They were friends of the bride and 
bridegroom. They looked forward for 
a long time to the wedding-day. They 
had made great preparations. If any- 
thing had been overlooked, it would be 
possible, some thought, while they were 
waiting, to hurry away and get what 
was needed. You know the disappoint- 
ing issue. While some of the brides- 
maids were away, the bride and 
bridegroom came, entered into their 
home and the door was closed. If you 
have ringing in your ears and echoes 
of your own home door closed on you 
in sadness or, God forbid, in anger, then 
you will be able to realize what jarring 
sounds reverberate forever in the ears 
of those who stand outside the closed 
door of heaven and knock forever in 
vain. 

Lord, did you not say, "Knock and 
it will be opened to you"? Are they 
not your own bridesmaids? Did you 
not invite them? What is the answer 
of Jesus to our protests and to their 
[142] 



FOUNDATION • DOOR ' HOUSETOP 

petitions. He declares that He does 
not know the very ones He chose. It 
was not enough that He should choose 
them; they must choose Him. They 
knew all the conditions upon which they 
were chosen. They were able easily, 
only too easily, to fulfill the conditions. 
It was not much that was asked of them. 
Only a little prudence. They did not 
look ahead. They are now knocking in 
vain at the closed door, and Jesus does 
not know them. His invitation was a 
knock at their hearts. Imprudence 
closed the door of their hearts. Had 
Jesus come to them, their light had 
never faded or gone out. Had the door 
of their hearts been open to Jesus, the 
door of the Heart of Jesus would be 
open to them forever. Open the door 
of the tabernacle and let Jesus enter 
your hearts, if you wish to have Jesus 
open the door of heaven and let you 
into His Heart. 



[143] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

HOUSE-TOP 

The house-top was for eastern peo- 
ple something hke a park. The Jews 
walked and talked, slept and prayed on 
the house-tops. It was on the house- 
top St. Peter received the vision from 
heaven which directed him to open the 
Christian Church to all jDcople, whether 
Jews or Gentiles. ''In very deed," said 
St. Peter, 'T perceive that God is not a 
respecter of persons. But in every na- 
tion, he that feareth Him and worketh 
justice, is acceptable to Him." To the 
roof and pinnacle of the temple Satan 
brought Jesus. There the evil one 
strove to induce our Lord to cast Him- 
self down, presuming on the power of 
God to work a miracle for Him. Je- 
sus spurned this suggestion of spiritual 
pride and quoted the Scripture : ''Thou 
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." 
Many a time Jesus is lifted up before 
you to be adored and to give you His 
blessing. Devotion to the Sacred 
[144] 



FOUNDATION ' DOOR • HOUSETOP 

Heart and devotion to the Blessed Sac- 
rament have brought our Lord more 
and more out of the tabernacle and set 
Him aloft, as it were, on the house-top. 
At Benediction and where there is tem- 
porary or perpetual adoration you see 
Jesus throned amidst flowers and lights 
and incense, and you may be sure that 
He is there praying for you, as no 
doubt He often did on the house-top of 
His first home in Nazareth, where, like 
Peter, He had visions of all races com- 
ing to His Eucharistic banquet. You 
may be sure too that in ciborium or 
monstrance He is interceding for you 
in your temptations when He recalls 
His own victorious combat with Satan, 
Jesus on the pinnacle of the altar is 
your guarantee that He will "make is- 
sue with the temptation that you be not 
tried beyond your strength." 

Jesus, however, did not come in the 
Blessed Sacrament simply to be seen 
and to be adored, and then go down 
again from on high to His tabernacle 

[145] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

home. Jesus sends to you His blessing 
and His prayers, but He wishes more 
than all to go out in person to your 
hearts. The house-tops of Palestine 
were the places from which public 
proclamations were made to the people. 
From the house-top the ruler pro- 
claimed his commands to the people. 
What the press is today, the chief agent 
of publicity, that the house-top of Pales- 
tine was in a small way. So when our 
Lord desired His teachings to go 
abroad, He declared to His apostles: 
''That which I tell you in the dark, 
speak ye in the light and that which 
you hear in the ear, preach ye upon 
the house-tops." Jesus did not want 
His doctrine hidden in the dark. Jesus 
became bread that he might come to 
you. In the Blessed Sacrament Jesus 
walks not except through you; He 
talks not except through you. He is 
dumb; He is helpless unless you give 
Him voice and proclaim His presence 
by your reception of Him. Sometimes 
[146] 



FOUNDATION * DOOR ' HOUSETOP 

indeed Jesus goes abroad when the 
priest brings Him to the sick, but even 
there He is really hidden until He is 
revealed and declared through the sick 
who partake of His Body. 

Whenever you go from the Com- 
munion rail, blessed with the most pre- 
cious of God's gifts, then you are 
preaching from the house-top Jesus in 
the Blessed Sacrament. The sacred 
memory of the morning's Communion, 
the patient word, the kind deed, the 
checked murmur, the cheerful welcom- 
ing of duties and trials, the suppressing 
of all evil gossip and fault finding, the 
thousand and one other thoughts and 
acts, which are inspired by the presence 
of Jesus within you, are all so many 
sermons by which you are preaching Je- 
sus from the house-top. Jesus is no 
longer dumb because He is speaking 
eloquently on your charitable lips. 
Jesus is no longer blind because He 
looks lovingly through your meek and 
patient glances. Jesus is not crippled 

[147] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

or maimed because in your limbs He 
runs to virtuous deeds; by your hands 
He reaches out in numberless kind 
ways to His brethren and yours. 
''That which I tell you in the dark, 
speak ye in the light." Jesus seemed 
to have hidden Himself in a cloud when 
He passed your lips to be your food, 
but no, the light of Jesus shines through 
you, transfiguring you with the bright- 
ness of His presence and the glory of 
His grace and radiating His splendor 
to all mankind through the virtues you 
perform because of His body and blood. 
You are the house-tops from which Je- 
sus preaches to the world. 



L 



PRAYER 

OBB JESUS, author and 
finisher of our faith, who 
art ever knocking at the door of 
our hearts and hast exhorted us to 
proclaim thy teachings from the 
house-tops, grant, we humbly ask 
of thee, that a stronger belief may 
[148] 



FOUNDATION • DOOR ' HOUSETOP 

increase our Communions and 
more frequent Communions may 
strengthen our belief and that, wel- 
coming thee from the open door 
of thy tabernacle, we may bear 
thee abroad and everywhere in 
the many virtues which thy sacra- 
mental presence bestows upon us 
for our exercise in time and for our 
exaltation throughout eternity. 



[149] 



PLOW, OXEN AND YOKE 
PLOW 



I 



T is not unlikely that Jesus may 
have managed a plow. He was, it is 
true, a carpenter, but He may have 
cultivated a small plot of ground for 
the wants of His mother. At any rate 
He knew how to plow if He had found 
it necessary. You recall what Jesus 
said to one of His followers who seemed 
to be wavering in loyalty. ''No man 
putting his hand to the plow and look- 
ing back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'* 
"Put your hand to the plow and look 
ahead," these are the brief and sufficient 
directions which Christ our Lord gives 
for plowing. A strong hand and a 
firm grip is needed to keep the point 
of the plow down in the soil. Tough 
sod, hard clay or rocky earth are dif- 
ficult things to go through and weary 
[150] 



PLOW • OXEN • YOKE 

the straining hands. Then too you 
must look ahead to avoid accidents, to 
keep your furrow straight and — here is 
the trouble fqr weak limbs — you must 
continue to look ahead until the furrow 
is finished, until the field is plowed. 
Don't drop your hand; don't look back, 
and you will be a good plowman, and 
Jesus tells you that if you do the same 
in God's harvest-fields you will be 
worthy of the kingdom of heaven. 
Ah, to reap God's harvest, you must 
break more stubborn ground than the 
plowman has to break. It is torturing 
to put one's hand to God's plow and 
press its point into the sensitive depths 
of the heart. The seed of God's sow- 
ing will not grow on beaten paths or 
on stones. You must soften your 
hearts. Pride or unbelief or stubborn 
clinging to your own will or persistence 
in what you know to be sinful, all these 
are the tough substance of the heart 
which must be broken up for the har- 
vest. 

[151] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Are you not at times likely to be dis- 
couraged with this painful work? Are 
you not tempted to look back and let 
the furrow go unfinished and relinquish 
your hopes of the harv^est? You begin 
to be very devout to the Blessed Sacra- 
ment ; you strive to root out your faults ; 
your confessions are fervent and fre- 
quent; you are often at the altar-rail; 
you visit Jesus on the altar, perhaps 
many times a day and you love to bow 
your head to His blessing at Benedic- 
tion. Yet, with all this, virtue seems 
no easier and sin seems to lose none of 
its attractions. Is your hand itching to 
relax its grasp on the plow? Are your 
eyes yearning to look back and give 
it all up in despair? Then recall the 
warning of Jesus: ''He that puts his 
hand to the plow and looks back is not 
worthy of the kingdom of God." Re- 
member what St. Paul tells you: "He 
that plows, should plow in hope." No 
farmer expects to see the green blades 
of the wheat sprouting up under his 
[152] 



PLOW • OXEN • YOKE 

plow. He knows he must plow in 
hope. He cheers himself by thoughts 
of the ripened grain of harvest-time. 
He takes new courage, puts more steel 
into his grasp of the plow, keeps a 
steadier watch out ahead. When the 
plump grain is slipping from the 
heavy-headed stalks, and bag and bas- 
ket are heaped to overflowing, then his 
hands may rest and his eyes look back 
contentedly upon a season of persever- 
ing labor. He plowed in hope; he is 
joyous in the harvest. So do not re- 
lax your efforts. Cease not your vis- 
its or confessions or Communions. 
Look not back to a life of ease. Do 
not be swayed by present difficulties. 
Go on in hope and by perseverance 
prove yourself fit for the kingdom of 
God. 

OXEN 

You must not forget that the ox 
helped the plowman in his work. In- 
deed the farmer's great friend and his 

[153] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

highly prized possession was his ox. 
When our Lord wished to convict His 
opponents of insincerity, He showed 
them how they would save their ox 
from death or feed it or lead it to water 
on the Sabbath and were hypocrites to 
condemn him for doing good to men 
on the Sabbath. Yes, the ox was the 
treasure of the people of Palestine. 
Nothing will better show you that truth 
than the parable of the man who made 
a great supper. Those invited began 
to excuse themselves. One could not 
come because he had bought a farm, an- 
other because he had married a wife, 
and still another had bought five yoke 
of oxen. Five yoke of oxen must have 
been a great wealth when they ranked 
as excuses of the same value as prop- 
erty and wife. In that case the oxen 
kept their ow^ner from the great ban- 
quet. The master of the house was 
angry that his invitation was treated 
with such scanty respect and he cried 
out, ''I say unto you that none of those 
[154] 



PLOW • OXEN • YOKE 

men that were invited shall taste of 
my supper," 

When Christ told this parable, it was 
at a meal given to Him by one of the 
Pharisees. Christ spoke in answer to 
one who had said : "Blessed is he that 
shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." 
There can hardly be any doubt that Je- 
sus must have thought of the other ban- 
quets He was to offer to mankind. 
Heaven is likened to a banquet. For 
all of these Christ has sent out most 
earnest invitations. Christ wishes all 
to eat bread in the kingdom of God, 
and to insure all of attaining that bless- 
ing, He gave us a banquet above all 
banquets upon earth. Who can refuse 
an invitation to that banquet? In it 
Jesus Himself is both host and food. 
Yet despite the attractiveness of His 
wonderful table, many of those invited 
refuse to come. The cares of life pos- 
sess them. They have bought oxen, 
and they wish to try them. They pre- 
fer to be with their animals rather than 

[155] 



WATCHING AX HOUR 

with Jesus. If you are allowing any- 
thing to keep you from Christ's table, 
you are not putting the price you 
should upon the bread of the kingdom 
of God. The sloth to which you yield, 
the amusements which captivate you, 
the desires which enslave you, the sin 
vou will not shake off vour soul, these 
and the like are your oxen. You pre- 
fer to try them and be with them than at 
Christ's banquet. 

What then are you to do? You 
must do as the Jews did. Sacrifice is 
found in all religion; sacrifice is the 
test of sincere love, and sacrifice of 
what is dear is the best expression of 
one's love. If their oxen were precious 
treasures to the Jews, and we know thev 
were, that would be all the more rea- 
son for giving them to God. Christ 
found in the temple those that sold 
oxen. The oxen were there to be sac- 
rificed. The ver}' gifts of God which 
keep you from Him may be the means 
of bringing you nearer to Him. If 
[156] 



PLOW • OXEN • YOKE 

then anything which God has made for 
you, pleasure of sense or joy of soul, 
ease or indulgence of any kind, keeps 
you from God, becomes a possession 
which would make you neglect the in- 
vitation to the banquet of the altar, 
then make a sweet-smelling sacrifice of 
that dangerous treasure. Turn from 
the stable to the tabernacle, from the 
field to the altar. Let your oxen give 
you higher and more delightful places 
at God's banquet in heaven by not pre- 
ferring them to the banquet which Jesus 
spreads for you here upon earth. 

YOKE 

What is it that brings the plow and 
oxen together and makes of them in- 
struments for good, producers of the 
golden harvest? It is the yoke. The 
yoke is the bond, necessary for plow 
and oxen, binding them together in 
fruitful labor. You know the yoke 
must be borne or the furrow will not 
be plowed; the yoke must weigh heav- 

[157] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

ily and chafe or the wheat will not be 
reaped. Plows and oxen might be the 
finest ever owned, but they are useless 
without the yoke. Without that bond 
there will be no bread. Is not that a 
sad truth for you, a truth which dis- 
turbs and worries ? A yoke, you think, 
means bondage; St. Paul speaks of be- 
ing held under a yoke of bondage. A 
yoke means slavery. ''Whosoever are 
servants under the yoke, let them count 
their masters worthy of all honor,'* 
writes St. Paul to Timothy. A yoke 
means a burden; St. Peter cried out 
against the Pharisees among the Chris- 
tians, ''Why tempt you God to put a 
yoke upon the necks of the disciples, 
which neither our fathers nor we have 
been able to bear?" You will no doubt 
wonder, if all this is so, why Jesus calls 
His yoke sweet and His burden light 
and why Jesus invites all who are sad 
and heavily burdened to come to Him, 
and for what purpose? Why, to put 
on that very yoke. 
[158] 



PLOW • OXEN • YOKE 

There is a mystery, you will say. 
How can a yoke be sweet? The tug- 
ging oxen and the tearing plow mean 
toil and suffering and every step of the 
weary limbs and every drive of the 
struggling plow presses upon the yoke 
to make it heavier and make it chafe 
very sorely. Yet with all that, the 
yoke of Jesus is sweet. The first rea- 
son is that you must bear some yoke. 
If you do not bear the yoke of inno- 
cence, you must bear the yoke of guilt. 
If you are not plowing the fields of vir- 
tue, you will be breaking up the fur- 
rows of vice. If you shake off the yoke 
of Christ, then the world, the flesh and 
the devil will put upon you their yokes. 
That is just what Jesus was teaching 
when He said that His voke was sweet. 
The people had to choose between Je- 
sus and the Pharisees. Both had their 
yokes, because religion implies a yoke, 
but the yoke of Jesus was sweet and 
the yoke of the Pharisees was galling. 
You find the service of God hard and 

[159] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

trying. You must put your hand to 
the plow and not look back and that is 
hard. You must make sacrifice of 
oxen and that is painful. You see vice 
about you laughing and dancing and 
rollicking and you find religion quiet 
and solemn and gloomy. Yet you 
must not forget that the yoke which 
vice makes for its followers is heavier 
than iron and more cutting than a knife. 
Your souls must bear some yoke and 
the yoke of Christ is sweetest of all. 

The second reason why the yoke of 
Christ is sweet is that Christ is always 
there to help you bear it. A yoke is 
a bond which unites two at least and 
when you put upon you Christ's yoke, 
or rather when you let Him fit it gently 
on your soul, smoothing the rough edges 
and suiting it to your weakness, you 
know that He is bearing half the weight 
or more and that He is doing more 
than half the work. In prayer, you 
feel Jesus sharing your burden, and in 
all the sacraments, in the consolations 
[160] 



PLOW • OXEN • YOKE 

of His grace, in the consoling services 
of His Church, in the relief of confes- 
sion and especially in the loving inter- 
course of Communion. The yoke is in- 
deed sweet because your yokefellow is 
Christ, Christ who reaches out a helping 
hand in hundreds of various ways, and 
especially from His home on the altar. 

PRAYER 

J ORD JESUS, husbandman 
-^^ of eternal life, who in the 
fruitful yield of the wheat hast 
been so full of kindness as to be- 
stow upon us a food beyond all 
price, hear us and grant to us, who 
are strengthened by thy body, the 
spirit of sacrifice and perseverance 
that we may manfully bear thy 
yoke and produce harvests of good- 
ness a hundredfold. 



[161] 



BOTTLES, BASKETS AND CUPS 

BOTTLES 

HE bottles in the time of our Lord 
were often made of skins of sheep and 
goats. In the course of time the 
leather would soften and lose its tough- 
ness by the constant moistening of the 
water or wine or by the bending and 
continual handling. Any slight pres- 
sure in excess of the bottle's capacity 
meant the loss of the spurting contents 
through parting seams. This explana- 
tion of one of our Lord's brief parables 
is needed for you, but His hearers 
would understand Him at once, when 
He said, "You cannot put new wine in 
old bottles." The Pharisees, who are 
the inveterate fault finders of the Gos- 
pels, had complained that Christ did 
not make His followers fast and mourn, 
[162] 



BOTTLES • BASKETS * CUPS 

and Christ answered them as He so 
often did with a lesson from their own 
experience. Would the Pharisees put 
new wine, fermenting and seething 
and expanding into old bottles? No! 
They knew too much for that. They 
took a new bottle for their new wine if 
they did not wish to lose wine and bot- 
tle alike. So our Lord, kindest of 
teachers, imparted His teachings gradu- 
ally and never taxed His followers be- 
yond their strength. Christ knew the 
breaking-point of His disciples' wills. 
He gave them what they could stand. 
He would not have them lose His 
precious message and break down their 
weak resolves by any excessive pres- 
sure. The wine was just right for the 
bottle and the bottle just right for the 
wine when Christ was master of the 
vineyard! Later on, the apostles bore 
fasting and mourning and persecution 
and death. If the blood of martyrdom 
was presented to their souls, they were 
able for even that severest of all the 

[163] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

pressures which test the will of man, 
but earlier in their lives such wine was 
too fiery for their veins. 

There is no greater marvel of con- 
descension than the Blessed Sacrament. 
Who can imagine a more wonderful 
and yet more natural way in which 
Jesus could come to us than in food — • 
the plainest, the most ordinary food? 
Indeed the very naturalness of it may 
be the occasion of making you forget 
the presence of God in the Sacred 
Host. Familiarity, the proverb tells 
us, may have serious consequences. 
Yet, you will promptly answer, no 
familiarity where there is true love can 
result in any lessening of esteem. You 
will recall your mother and will remem- 
ber that in her case the closest intimacy 
did but increase your love and respect. 
No more precious contents were ever 
put into any vessel than Jesus put into 
the Blessed Sacrament. It was for 
your sake He put His body and blood, 
soul and divinity into the lowliness of 
[164] 



BOTTLES * BASKETS • CUPS 

common food, transforming its sub- 
stance into Himself and leaving the 
outward appearance of bread that to 
come to Him might be easy and at- 
tractive. 

In another way too Jesus conde- 
scends to your weakness in the Blessed 
Sacrament. Sacrifice and religion have 
always gone together. God has always 
demanded service and sacrifice. The 
fruits of the fields and the first things 
of the flocks were offered to Him by 
the Jews. Wherever man worshipped 
God, he made sacrifice to the Creator of 
all by the destruction of something 
precious in His creatures. Christ did 
not do away with sacrifice. He per- 
fected it. He became the last, supreme 
offering to God and instituted the 
Blessed Sacrament to repeat forever 
the most perfect act of sacrifice wherein 
God is priest and victim. You have no 
treasure to lose, no beloved son, no 
sheep or ox, no lamb or doves. Jesus 
has made sacrifice easy for you. He 

[165] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

has become your sacrifice on the altar. 
If your hearts had to bear the strain 
put upon the heart of Abraham, you 
would find them a thousand times 
weaker than old bottles filled with fer- 
menting wine. How sweetly, how 
wonderfully, has Jesus made His truths 
fit the soul! His religion is most nat- 
ural, most winning. Jesus is our sacri- 
fice, offered every moment, and ac- 
cepted every moment by God, the 
Father. But does He not want some 
sacrifice of you? He wants you to 
share in His sacrifice, to participate in 
the Mass, to partake of His body and 
blood, and in preparation for His 
coming to you He wants you to make 
the sacrifice of repentance and repara- 
tion. ''A sacrifice to God is an af- 
flicted spirit; a contrite and humble 
heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." 

BASKETS 

One day the apostles took ship with 
our Lord and had only one loaf of bread 
[166] 



BOTTLES • BASKETS * CUPS 

with them. Perhaps poverty, perhaps 
carelessness was responsible for their 
meagre rations. Just before embark- 
ing some Pharisees had put questions 
to our Lord. They put their questions 
as they usually did, not with the desire 
of learning but with the purpose of 
catching our Lord. Turning to His 
apostles, Jesus said, as the boat was 
going off, ''Don't let the principles of 
the Pharisees affect you," but Jesus 
used other words than those. He 
wished to describe the secret, all-per- 
vading, insidious force of the Phari- 
sees' spirit, and He cried, ''Beware of 
the leaven of the Pharisees." The 
apostles thought of their single loaf 
and, if they had to keep away from the 
bakeshops of the Pharisees, what would 
they do? Their Lord was somewhat 
vexed and gave them an itemized ac- 
count of their faculties, far from flat- 
tering. Their reason is wrong; their 
hearts are blind; their ears hear not; 
their eyes see not neither do they re- 

[167] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

member. That was pretty hard on the 
apostles, but they deserved it all. They 
might have mistaken Christ's meaning 
in otlier ways. Surely they ought not 
to have thought that they would not 
have bread enough. Christ had fed five 
thousand, and twelve baskets of frag- 
ments remained; He had fed seven 
thousand, and seven baskets of frag- 
ments remained. Therefore common 
sense, eyes, ears, heart, memory should 
tell them that Christ could feed ten or 
twelve men. ''Neither do they remem- 
ber." But before you berate the apos- 
tles for their folly, think of the great 
food that Jesus offers you on the altar. 
Are you drawing the right conclusions 
about the Bread of the altar? You 
have eyes and ears and a heart and a 
memory and are your faculties blind 
and careless ? Learn to have confidence 
in the power of God. One loaf is little, 
but one loaf and Christ will feed a mul- 
titude. Your powers are weak. You 
alone are nothing, but your slightest 
[168] 



BOTTLES • BASKETS * CUPS 

good coupled with Christ in the Blessed 
Sacrament will be all powerful. 

The apostles drew wrong conclusions 
from the baskets of fragments and how 
could they have missed the conclusion 
of confidence and how could they miss 
the conclusion of Christ's lavish giving? 
Was it not enough to feed five thou- 
sand? Not enough for the excessive 
generosity of Jesus. His bounty over- 
flows all its measures. The apostles 
gathered up baskets of fragments. 
How could they ever forget that great 
scene, you will wonder. Had you 
been present and seen loaves doubling, 
tripling, quadrupling themselves, you 
are sure you would never forget the 
sight. Christ gives His blessing, and 
the loaves multiply. Well, if you were 
the apostles and saw two, three, four 
loaves spring up where only one was 
before, you ought certainly to remember 
it forever. The apostles seem to have 
been a dull set before the Holy Ghost 
transformed them. Yet before you 

[169] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

condemn the apostles utterly and be- 
fore you grow proud over what you 
have done, what are you doing and say- 
ing about a still greater miracle which 
goes on before your eyes every day? 
You witness, not five loaves feeding 
five thousand, but one body of Christ 
multiplied daily into a million millions 
and feeding the whole human race. 
And did every man and woman on the 
face of the earth come to the Com- 
munion rail every day, the Body of 
Christ would feed that vast multitude, 
and every day and for all time there 
would be fragments over and above. If 
the apostles had eyes and saw not and 
had ears and heard not, if their hearts 
were blind, what of you? Do you 
reason rightly? Do you remember? 
Is there any overflow in the measure of 
your love? Would the keenest eye- 
sight detect the smallest fragment over 
and above in the generosity of your 
gratitude, your service? Suppose the 
apostles come around with the basket 
[170] 



BOTTLES • BASKETS * CUPS 

and ask you for a fragment of fervor, 
more self-denial, more kindness to 
neighbor and more love to God, will 
they come back to Christ with their 
baskets full or empty? 

CUPS 

"A cup of cold water shall not lose 
its reward." The teaching of Christ 
follows you into all the details of your 
daily life. What is easier than to give 
a cup of cold water? What is grander 
than to know that your loving Lord 
has registered that simple act in heaven? 
The scientists tell you that if a fly 
moves, the weight of the whole universe 
has shifted its centre, but our Lord tells 
you that if you give a cup of water in 
His name, you move heaven and eter- 
nity. The widow's mites become as 
precious as millions when joined to the 
might of Christ. Give your gift of 
money for sinful purposes, and it opens 
for you the gates of hell; give your 
money for Christ and it pays your way 

[171] 



WATCHING AN HOUE 

into heaven. You cannot make a lie 
good by any intention whatsoever, but 
you can make the bankers of heaven lay 
aside interest for you if you do the sim- 
plest act of kindness for the love of 
Christ. By a cup of water Christ 
meant any help to His children. An 
alms, a visit to the sick, a word of en- 
couragement, a smile of approbation, a 
kindly glance may hold the cooling 
drink to the thirsty heart, and the thirst 
of the heart is more piercing than the 
thirst of the lips. Bring out your cups 
then and brighten them inside and out 
if they need it. Be not like the Phari- 
sees who had the dress of religion and 
the folded hands and uplifted eyes and 
long prayers of religion, but did not 
have the heart of religion. They spoke 
and acted in their own name, not in the 
Name of God. They were gold-plated, 
not gold to the core. Put your cups of 
kindness to thirsty lips and pour in 
with the water a generous mixture of 
the love of God. Give all you can with 
[172] 



BOTTLES • BASKETS * CUPS 

your cup of kindness, but you will never 
give what Jesus gives in His cup of 
kindness. Jesus gives Himself. He 
filled His cup with His own blood and 
put that refreshing drink to the thirsty 
hearts of the world. 

Ah, it was not easy for Jesus to pour 
Himself into the chalice of the Blessed 
Sacrament. He had to drain the cup 
of sorrow before He could refresh you 
with the cup of joy. He shrank from 
the Passion. God's justice did not hold 
to the lips of His Son a cup of cold 
water. Ah! no! The cup of His jus- 
tice was filled with the bitterness of your 
ingratitude and the gall of your sins. 
Christ shrank from the taste of that 
bitter cup but overcoming His repug- 
nance, He drained every drop of it for 
your sake. The cup of His sorrow is 
the cup of your solace. The bitterness 
of the Agony has filled the chalice of 
the Blessed Sacrament with the sweet- 
ness of peace. You have heard of those 
doctors who have allowed themselves to 

[173] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

be bitten by insects to prove that fever 
was so carried from man to man. They 
died martjTS to science. They took 
poison that others might avoid poison. 
Jesus put His innocent hps to the chal- 
ice of the world's iniquity that you 
might be free from your share of it. 
Jesus gave us the cup of kindness which 
He sweetened by sacrifice. Drink of 
the wine of the Blessed Sacrament, the 
wine from which springeth forth vir- 
gins. Learn to be kind. The day on 
which you make an act of self-denial 
and sacrifice will be a happy day in your 
life. The day your sacrifice is done in 
order to be kind to another will be a 
blissful day. Be brave to drain the cup 
of sorrow to give the draught of kind- 
ness. 

"This is the chalice, the new testa- 
ment in my blood, which shall be shed 
for you." Jesus gives to your thirsting 
hearts not the cup of cold water but the 
cup of His warm blood. The rich man 
in hell would give all wealth if Lazarus 
[174] 



BOTTLES • BASKETS • CUPS 

would let a drop of water fall from the 
finger upon the tongue which was 
parched by the fires of eternal torments. 
You were doomed to baked lips and 
parched tongue, and your Saviour came 
to you across a great chaos fixed by 
God's justice and with the brimming 
cup of His own blood slaked your thirst 
and refreshed and healed you, lifting 
you by its strength from torments to 
eternal bliss. You no longer, as was 
done in the early Church, receive the 
blood of Jesus under the form of wine. 
The priest receives under both kinds; 
you receive body and blood, soul and 
divinity, all under the form of bread. 
You drink of the blood of Jesus when 
you partake of His body living and 
pulsating with blood. Jesus then is 
kind to you. He is kind where it costs 
to be kind. He is kind with infinite 
kindness. Jesus gives you a cup which 
He had to die that He might fill. He 
gives you a cup brimming with the most 
precious draughts, the blood of the 

[175] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Lamb of God, the infinitely sacred and 
rich blood of the Son of God. Give, 
therefore, give even where it costs, 
give generously. Give of that treasure 
in which the poorest are rich, the kind- 
ness of deed, of word, of look, of 
thought. 

PRAYER 

rriEACHER of all truth and 
^ giver of all good gifts, who 
hast everywhere and in everything 
favored us with lessons of duty and 
benefits of thy bounty, grant, we 
beseech thee, that ever mindful of 
what we have learned and ever 
earnest in what has been enjoined 
us, we may by thy holy sacrament 
attain to the fullest measure of 
eternal truth and eternal goodness. 



[176] 



MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT 
MORNING 



I 



T was early in the morning that Je- 
sus rose from the dead. That morning 
was the one which flooded all hearts 
with the undying light of hope. Sin 
had been conquered; the imprisoned 
souls of the just had been led through 
the open gates of heaven, and now 
when the great stone was rolled back 
from the tomb of Christ, death itself 
had been defeated. Its sting was lost; 
its victories had gone forever. The 
morning of Easter brought sunshine to 
the soul. You and every one who fol- 
lows Christ has had golden splendor 
roll in upon the world of your thoughts, 
and through the brightness of the new 
day you see the open tombs of earth 
and the opened gates of heaven. The 

[177] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

morning is naturally the time of hope. 
Yesterday might have been a failm-e 
through sin or sorrow or disappoint- 
ment, but the morning finds you re- 
freshed in mind and body, clear-eyed 
to see the mistakes of the past, resolute 
to repair its damages. A long stretch 
of unused time lies before you, bright 
with possibilities of success in the eyes 
of man and God. If you wish to make 
that morning hope still brighter and 
more secure, at least of heavenly suc- 
cess, then put your hearts beside the 
tomb of Christ and enrich them with 
new belief in His Resurrection. 
Should Jerusalem seem far away and 
the first Easter long distant, there is 
another tomb and another resurrection 
which will bring to you the unfailing 
hope of God. Let Christ roll back the 
door of His tabernacle and enter upon 
the risen life He enjoys with His Com- 
municants. 

Early in the morning the house- 
holder, as Jesus told us in His parable, 
[178] 



MORNING • NOON • NIGHT 

went out to hire laborers for his vine- 
yard. He had planned his day's work 
and was preparing to profit fully by all 
its hours. The morning is the time of 
prayer. "I, O Lord, have cried to 
thee/' says David; ''and in the morn- 
ing my prayer shall prevent Thee." 
Plans and prayers belong to the first 
part of the day. The work of life 
must be done intelligently and care- 
fully and so the soul must plan. The 
work of life should be blessed by God 
and so the soul must pray. Jesus has 
been watching over you all the night. 
He was ready indeed to come to you 
over the stormy waters if you were toil- 
ing fruitlessly at the oar. But now at 
all events He awaits you. ''When the 
morning was come, Jesus stood on the 
shore." He is ready to bless you as 
He blessed the work of the apostles. 
No one could have planned better than 
they. They knew by years of experi- 
ence where to go for a rich haul of fish. 
Yet their work had been in vain; their 

[179] 



WATCHING AN HOUE 

plans were fruitless until Jesus stood 
on the shore in the morning and they 
let down their nets at His word. Je- 
sus waits for you in the morning. If 
you do not by Communion take Him 
away with you through the work of the 
day, at least let Him bless your plans 
for the day. Bring to Jesus your 
bright hopes and above all bring to Him 
your sad disappointments ; submit them 
all to Him. Accept His guidance, do- 
ing all as He bids. Then you know 
with the assurance that God gives you 
that your work will be blessed. It may 
be that the success which men can see 
will escape you, yet before God and for 
heaven, your day's plans will be eter- 
nally successful because you have 
brought them to INIass or to the altar 
where you prayed Jesus to bless your 
work in the morning. 

NOON 

It was at noon-time that Jesus laid 
Himself upon His cross and was nailed 
[180] 



MORNING * NOON ' NIGHT 

to it. Jesus had oftened travelled in 
the heat of the day over the rough 
roads. He had been foot-sore and 
weary. The rocks and brambles had 
sadly lacerated the feet of the Good 
Shepherd as He sought for His lost 
sheep. Should not Jesus have had lei- 
sure to rest His tired limbs? How 
weary the hands of Jesus must have 
been I He supported Himself by man- 
ual labor. He lifted His hands in 
blessing every day. He went about do- 
ing good in the light of the sun and 
when sunset came, He still continued 
to lay His healing hands upon the 
countless sick. Was it not time that 
the hands of Jesus should have some 
repose? Time and time again Jesus 
stood on the sea-shore or along the way- 
side or upon the hill and spent Himself 
in His work of teaching the people. 
His brain was wearied with thinking. 
His heart was anguished with endless 
compassioning. Should not thoughts 
and love have some leisure to get relief? 

[181] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Alas that Jesus should bear the heat 
and burden of the day and then on His 
last earthly day have harder labor! 
The wearied feet and worn hands were 
nailed to the wood, the throbbing head 
was girt with sharp thorns and the lov- 
ing heart was pierced through. Be- 
hold the rest His people have made for 
their Saviour. You too when you face 
your day's work, often find that you 
have a cross to be nailed to. Most of 
the work of life whether in the home or 
in office or factory is monotonous. The 
same round of duties palls on you. 
The same surroundings, the same com- 
panions and the same toil, the same 
sharp criticism of little defects and the 
same complete overlooking of perfect 
work, the same indifference when you 
arrive at your work and the same gruff 
dismissal when you leave it, the same 
fault-finding and petty quarrels at 
home — all these are your crucifixion. 
These are the thousand tortures which 
face you at the noon of your day. You 
[182] 



MORNING • NOON ' NIGHT 

are fastened down to your work and 
your surroundings by the sharp nails of 
duty or necessity. The mid-day sun 
shines down upon you pitilessly as it 
beat upon Christ Jesus, your Lord and 
God. 

Yet what is your drop of pain to His 
ocean of torture? Monotony and cold- 
ness and neglect are not sharp things 
like thorns and nails and spears. Your 
home, your place of work is not a cross. 
Most of all, your little crucifixion is 
not suffered alone. When Christ was 
lifted up at high noon between heaven 
and earth. He drew all things to Him. 
You were drawn to Him and blessed 
by Him. Your work was made rich; 
your sufferings became currency pay- 
able in heaven because they bore the 
name of Jesus, the Saviour, written 
upon them in saving blood. Again, 
Christ put away from Himself all con- 
solation. His friends, His Mother and, 
as far as could be, His heavenly Father, 
but you are never alone. Jesus is with 

[183] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

you in every moment of the day up to 
noon and after it. If you have re- 
ceived Jesus in Communion or if you 
have only visited Him or even if you 
only think of Him in the Eucharist, in 
all cases He will be with you. His life 
in the Holy Eucharist is a continuation 
of the Sacrifice He underwent at noon 
on the day of His death. Turn then 
to Jesus in the Eucharist when your 
hour of crucifixion begins and rest as- 
sured that He is still lifted up for you 
and drawing you to Himself, comfort- 
ing and consohng, blessing every pang, 
rewarding eveiy w^eariness, making 
your noon-day sufferings as fruitful in 
their measure as His crucifixion was 
upon Golgotha under the blazing heat 
of the Jerusalem sun. 

NIGHT 

During His public life the time of 
night was not a time of rest for Jesus. 
Crowds of sick came to Him at sunset 
and after the many hours of teaching 
[184] 



MORNING • NOON * NIGHT 

and preaching He would go about 
among the sick, comforting them and 
healing them, laying His hands upon 
one, cheering another with words of 
consolation and to a third giving greater 
relief than mere cessation of pain by 
lifting from his soul the load of sin. 
These were some of the works of Christ 
after nightfall. Then finally when all 
had been dismissed and Jesus was alone, 
even then His labor for us was not at 
an end. After teaching and laboring 
and curing, Jesus turned to prayer. 
''He passed the v/hole night in the 
prayer of God," writes St. Luke of one 
occasion. It is like such a night for 
Jesus when He puts Himself beneath 
the appearances of bread and wine. 
The day of His life is now past, but 
Jesus does not cease to work. He 
watches over you as He watched over 
His apostles. He spends many whole 
nights in prayer for you. He is, as St. 
Paul says, ''always living to make in- 
tercession for us.'' You may be able 

[185] 



WATCHING AN HOUE 

to come in the night after your work 
and visit Him who is making interces- 
sion for you. You may be fortunate 
enough to be present at Benediction of 
the Blessed Sacrament and have the 
blessing of Jesus come down on you as 
on the sick of the Holy Land. At all 
events you will turn towards the sleep- 
less watcher of the Tabernacle when 
your nightfall comes and think of Him 
and talk to Him before you go to sleep, 
grateful to Jesus for watching over 
you, eager to have further blessings for 
yourself. 

No one who thinks of the Blessed 
Sacrament can forget that it was night 
when Jesus sat down to the Last Sup- 
per, the night of the institution of the 
Holy Sacrament. Jesus was to die on 
the next day and then what would the 
sick and sorrowing do? They must not 
be abandoned. Jesus looked down the 
ages and across the lands and seas and 
saw every member of man's body tor- 
mented with pain and beheld every 
[186] 



MORNING • NOON ' NIGHT 

heart of mankind throbbing with the 
anguish of some sorrow. Jesus had 
your pains and your griefs before His 
eyes, and He would not leave mankind 
or you without a comforter. He would 
still heal the sick and console the sad 
even after the sun set upon His life. 
Think of it! On the next day, yes, 
that very night, within a few hours He 
was to be betrayed, insulted, tortured, 
hounded to death; He was to have al- 
most the whole world turn against Him 
in hate. Yet Jesus was planning to 
give His enemies life, when they were 
planning to give Him death. He was 
devising the most perfect gift which 
love ever made as they were stirring up 
hatred and fury to do a most hateful 
work. What would your thoughts be 
if you knew some one was to sneer at 
you, or neglect you or fail to show you 
respect to-morrow? Would you be 
planning with Jesus to do your brother 
good or would you be planning with 
Judas to do your brother harm? 

[187] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Would it be the Bread of Life or the 
poison of death? Would it be the 
Eucharist or the Cross that you would 
bring to those who hate you? 

PRAYER 

T^E with us. Lord Jesus, morn- 
"^^ ing, noon, and night; fill us 
with hope at daybreak and pa- 
tience all the day and contentment 
after our labors, so that, by the 
favors which come from thy death 
and resurrection and by the power 
of the tabernacle where thou art 
entombed until our hearts welcome 
thy coming, we may be strength- 
ened to spend every hour of time 
profitably and be made worthy to 
lise gloriously to thee when life is 
no more. 



[188] 



EARS, EYES AND TONGUE 

EARS 

JLxE who has ears to hear, let him 
hear." It sounds quaint to have the 
gospel repeat that phrase so often. 
"Ears to hear." Well, what should 
anyone have ears for? For ornaments? 
For hooks on which to hang spectacles? 
For pendants of ear-rings? Surely 
though ears may have many excellent 
offices to perform, they are negligent of 
their duty if they are closed when they 
should be open or open when they 
should be closed. Many a good pair 
of ears during our Lord's time were not 
hearing; or if they heard, they did not 
heed. "The heart of this people is 
grown gross and with their ears they 
have been dull to hearing." So speaks 
St. Matthew of those whom Jesus was 

[189] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

addressing. You know how the ears 
can get used to sounds. The ears 
which at one time quiver most hvely at 
the tick of a watch, may by custom be- 
come abnost entirely oblivious to the 
pounding of a hundred hammers on 
hollow iron. Such is the effect of 
habit. The words of Jesus fell on deaf 
ears, deaf through habitual indiffer- 
ence, deaf through hate, deaf through 
pride. Jesus opened many ears in His 
day, but they were closed by natural 
weakness or physical defect. Jesus 
could not always open ears which were 
closed by gross hearts, closed through 
lack of love and charity, Jesus could 
put back soundly and solidly on the head 
of jNIalchus the ear which Peter lopped 
off, but we are not certain that Jesus 
made Malchus open the ears of his 
heart. 

Let us hope ^lalchus did use his ears 
for hearing and heeding Jesus. If he 
did, Jesus performed in his case a dou- 
ble miracle, restoring ears to Malchus' 
[190] 



EARS • EYES * TONGUE 

heart when He restored ears to Mal- 
ehus' head. Have you ever had ears 
deafened to you by hatred? Have you 
ever had anyone refuse to hear a good 
word of you, and eager, even greedy, 
to listen to any evil story about you? 
Have you ever felt or knew or imag- 
ined that one who was dear to you, a 
father, a mother, a relative, a friend, 
has turned towards you not deaf ears, 
although that were bad enough, but a 
deaf heart? Have your excuses, pro- 
tests, appeals, cries of agony, fallen on 
stony deafness? Ah, if you have ex- 
perienced the bitterness of having deaf 
hearts turn deaf ears to you, will you 
I permit your hatred or pride to change 
for others your hearts to lead and your 
ears to stone? 

Recall the sensitive ears of Jesus. 
When ears have been trained by long 
practice to appreciate the beauty of 
music, the slightest discord may pro- 
duce pain as acute as quivering flesh 
would feel under the edge of a knife. 

[191] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Think of the ears of Jesus and how 
they throbbed with agony at the sins of 
mankind. The only reason why Jesus 
took a body was to suffer for you. 
His ears then heard every sound of 
hatred and anger from the venomous 
whisper which pride utters so secretly, 
even to the loudest clamor of savage 
rage. His ears were open to every 
sound of pain and sorrow. The faint 
murmur of the lost sheep, and the peni- 
tent outcry of the Prodigal, the low 
moan of the widowed mother and the 
loud lament of the saddened father, the 
anguish of every foul disease and 
the agony of death, all human griefs in 
their fullest intensity or slightest mani-| 
festation, found Jesus with ears to hear 
and a heart to throb. Jesus never 
closed His ears in hatred. You could 
insult Him, and He would be all the 
more gentle with you. You could 
strike Him, and He would not repulse 
you. You could murder Him, but even 
in death His ears would still be open to 
[192] 



EARS ' EYES ' TONGUE 

you. Jesus has not taken His ears 
away from you. They are still open to 
you in His altar home. They still 
come close to you in Communion. Je- 
sus has still ears open to hear you, 
whether you are repenting of old faults 
or resolving on new virtues, whether 
you weep or rejoice. Jesus has ears 
which love has opened and which love 
shall ever keep open. 

EYES 

St. Ignatius of Loyola has a method 
of prayer which consists in comparing 
the use we make of our senses with the 
use our Lord made of His senses. The 
senses need education, and they could 
not go to a better school than to that 
of Jesus. The eyes that have been 
made to look as Jesus looked will see 
God for all eternity. Christ has told 
you that if your eye is an occasion of 
sin to you, pluck it out. That is the 
heroic treatment for extreme cases. 
Prevention is the first duty; cure, the 

[193] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

second; amputation is the last resort. 
He who has watched the glances of Je- 
sus in the gospel and looked eye to eye 
with Him upon life, will go into heaven 
with all the eyes God gave him. Jesus 
had searching eyes. Nothing escaped 
their glance. Jesus saw Satan falling 
like lightning from heaven and beheld 
the gleam of the widow's two mites as 
they dropped into the temple treasury. 
To the eyes of Jesus the widow's far- 
thing was brighter and bigger than the 
large amount of money of the rich and 
far more resplendent than the eclipsed 
glory of Satan. Jesus had far-seeing, 
penetrating ej^es. He looked back to 
eternity and looked forward to eternity, 
beholding the doom of Jerusalem, the 
enduring truth of His Church, the end 
of time, the day of judgment and the 
unending joy of heaven. Jesus looked 
down into the hearts of men, detecting 
the evil motives of His enemies and 
dwelling upon the slightest traces of 
faith or humility or love in all. The 
[194] 



EARS • EYES * TONGUE 

eyes of Jesus were often fixed upon 
heaven for guidance and blessing. 
After His baptism He saw the heavens 
open. Before the multiphcation of the 
bread and before prayer He fixed His 
eyes upon heaven, as in imitation of 
Him the priest does now at Mass be- 
fore the Consecration. You know, 
then, that Jesus used His eyes to ap- 
prove good and condemn evil, to keep 
the heart pure and to receive the help 
and light of heaven. 

The early Christians felt that Jesus 
in the Blessed Sacrament should bless 
and sanctify their senses. In some 
places it was a custom to touch the eyes 
with the sacred species and to wet them 
with the moisture of the consecrated 
wine left upon the lips. They 
''anointed and blessed," as they said, 
''the gates of their senses with the body 
and blood of Christ." No such custom 
exists to-day but the necessity of sancti- 
fying the eyes still remains and the 
sight and touch and reception of Jesus 

[195] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

in the Eucharist will help His diligent 
scholars to look as He looked and make 
their eyes torches to lead them on the 
way to God. 

However keen the sight of Jesus was, 
He seemed at times to desire to close 
His eyes. It is of His eyes closed that 
you think, no doubt, when you look 
upon the Blessed Sacrament. There 
Jesus has veiled His eyes from our 
gaze and there too you may learn the 
lesson of keeping eyes closed, a more 
useful lesson and a harder one to mas- 
ter than that of keeping eyes open. 
Jesus looked upon the sinful woman 
and saw her sorrow, closing His eyes 
to her past sins. Jesus looked upon 
Magdalen, and her love made Him shut 
out the vision of her lapses. Jesus 
looked upon Peter with regret, not with 
recrimination, and Peter was converted 
by that one loving look. Is that the 
kind of look you have experienced in 
your life? Have people ever gazed at 
you with looks of hatred and stones in 
[196] 



EARS • EYES * TONGUE 

their hands? Have they gazed, as the 
Pharisee did upon Magdalen, sneering, 
criticising and condemning? Have 
they looked at you as the maid servant 
looked at Peter, to ruin you? What 
has been the glance of other eyes upon 
you? Was it veiled by charity or ven- 
omous through malice? Have you had 
fixed upon you the eyes of Jesus or the 
eyes of Judas? But the question now 
is, what you are going to do, rather than 
what has been done to you. The veiled 
eyes of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament 
will teach you the difficult art which Je- 
sus practised. You will close your eyes 
to sin and not let them direct the cast- 
ing of any stones. You will close your 
eyes to criticism and rash judgments 
and not let them condemn what Jesus 
does not condemn. You will close your 
eyes to the denial and betrayal of Jesus 
and open them to conversion and hope 
and love. 



[197] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

TONGUE 

If eye and ear have slain their thou- 
sands, the tongue has slain its tens of 
thousands. Who shall count the vic- 
tims of the tongue? The sneering 
tongue, the chilling tongue, the ven- 
omous tongue, the fault-finding tongue, 
the back-biting tongue, the nagging, 
carping and cutting tongue, the lying 
and malicious tongue — that is a list 
which has murdered more souls than the 
most fatal plague has destroyed bod- 
ies. The tongue will lie in ambush like 
a poisonous serpent; it will leap from 
the dark like an assassin's dagger; it 
will sting like a deadly scorpion; tear 
its prey like a ravenous lion and gnaw 
upon the bones like a famishing cur. 
Say what you will, you cannot equal 
what God's revealed word tells you of 
the tongue. "Every nature of beasts 
and of birds and of serpents and of the 
rest is tamed and hath been tamed by 
the nature of man. But the tongue," 
[198] 



EARS • EYES * TONGUE 

cries St. James, "no man can tame, an 
unquiet evil, full of deadly poison," "sl 
world of iniquity," ''set on fire by hell." 
These are the words of Christ's apostle, 
and they are not exaggerated. Think 
of the mangled victims of the tongue 
which you yourselves know of. Citizen 
set against citizen; neighbor against 
neighbor; friend estranged from friend; 
families rent asunder; husband and 
wife blackening each other with the hor- 
rors of the divorce court; sister hating 
sister; brother with murderous thoughts 
against his brother; these and tens of 
thousands of ruined souls like these, are 
on the death list of the tongue. No 
wonder the tongue of Dives was blis- 
tered by the fire of helL Touch it not, 
Lazarus, with the tip of your mois- 
tened finger. The tongue as St. James 
said was set on fire by hell. There let 
the virulent pest burn forever without 
one drop of alleviation. 

But suppose Lazarus had been per- 
mitted to let one drop of refreshing 

[199] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

water touch the lips of Dives; suppose 
a flake of the whitest, ice-cold snow had 
fallen upon that tortured, burning 
tongue, what would Dives' gratitude 
not be! Would he not beg Lazarus to 
tell his friends on earth to govern their 
unruly tongues and avail themselves of 
all the means w^hich w'ould make them 
worlds of sanctity rather than of in- 
iquity. If a flake of snow will quench 
a spark of fire, what should be the ef- 
fect upon the tongues w^here rests day 
after day the snow-white host of the 
altar? There is "a river of water of 
life, clear as crystal, proceeding from 
the throne of God and of the Lamb." 
Cooled by that pure snow, bathed in 
that crystal stream, the tongues which 
are on fire against you will quench their 
flames here, not intensifv them with 
Dives hereafter. 

"What is most deadly about the 
tongue is that we see its evil to us; we 
do not see the evil our tongues do to 
others. The hand which grasps the 
[200] 



EARS • EYES • TONGUE 

dagger's handle feels not the keenness 
of its point. You wince and flame to 
anger at what others say about you, but 
do not think that what you said yester- 
day or the day before that is now mak- 
ing your neighbor flame to anger? 
You see other homes blasted by evil 
tongues. Are you dropping sparks of 
fire which will produce in your homes 
a like disastrous explosion? If you 
thought one was now striving to ruin 
your character by speaking of your 
faults, you would cease to number such 
a one among your friends. That you 
are not the first to set the evil going, is 
indeed to your credit, but why should 
you be the one to keep it going. The 
authorities keep fever and death away 
from Panama by killing the carriers of 
the plague. Have others by carrying 
evil on their tongues infected souls 
against you? Are you anxious to rival 
those noxious insects which go from 
man to man and inoculate them with 
the seeds of destruction? The tongue 

[201] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

which Jesus touches should not be a 
plague-carrier. Jesus once with the sa- 
liva of His own mouth touched the 
tongue of a dumb man, and the dumb 
spoke. Can you imagine him using 
that newly restored tongue to slander 
or criticise or injure Jesus? Will the 
touch of the body of Christ be less pow- 
erful in its effects upon your tongue? 
The venomous point of the tongue can 
pierce another only by piercing Jesus 
first. If you will sin against a neigh- 
bor, you must first sin against God. 
Will you carry Jesus upon your tongue 
that you may before the day is done 
wound and slay the friends of Jesus? 

PRAYER 

TESUSy Friend and Redeemer 
^^ of mankind, whose command 
bids us love one another with our 
whole heart, whose generous in- 
vitation gathers us all, as of one 
home, to thy banquet of divine 
hospitality, bless us richly in every 
[202] 



EARS • EYES ' TONGUE 

member of our body with thy 
gentle charity that we may con- 
stantly in what touches our neigh- 
bor hear and see and say all good 
and no evil, and may by mutual 
kindliness make of this earth a 
vision of heaven. 



[203] 



TEARS, ATONEMENT AND LOVE 

TEARS 

%J ESUS wept at the tomb of Laza- 
rus whom He loved. Martha and 
JNIary needed no such testimony to 
prove Jesus' love. Had they not sent 
to Him the tenderest message ever con- 
ceived by mortal minds? "He whom 
Thou lovest is sick." That was not the 
composition of the busy Martha. She 
was off arranging about the messenger. 
It was rather the composition of ]Mary. 
It came from the school that held its ses- 
sions at Christ's feet and was the ripest 
product of the best scholar. INIartha 
and Mary, then, needed not the testi- 
mony of tears to prove a love they 
knew too well. But there were in- 
credulous visitors in the mourning house 
at Bethany, and they needed evidence, 
[204] 



TEARS • ATONEMENT * LOVE 

evidence not merely of the love of Je- 
sus, but also of its intensity. Indeed 
it was the intensity that they expressed 
when they said, "Behold how He loved 
him." 

Does it not seem strange that Jesus 
should have wept? In a moment He 
was to order the stones taken away; 
He was to summon Lazarus forth; He 
was to loose him and let Him go. One 
would think He should smile. Once be- 
fore, when the daughter of Jairus was 
dead. He said, ''Why make you this 
ado and weep?" It is a new revelation, 
if we needed one, of the delicate svm- 
pathy of the Heart of Christ. The 
grief of the crowd about the house of 
Jairus was too demonstrative to be 
fully sincere. It changed too quickly 
to a sneering laugh when Christ spoke 
of the girl as sleeping. But here in 
Bethany, with Mary fallen at His feet, 
there was sacred grief and, though it 
was to change soon into joy, Christ's 
Heart felt its present poignancy too 

[205] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

keenly to anticipate the gladness of its 
removal. Love reached in with power 
to the deep sluggish source of a man's 
tears, and Jesus wept. 

That w^as surely a moving sight. 
The most incredulous could not doubt 
what it meant. It had one lesson, one 
meaning, and even unbelieving minds 
spontaneously made confession of the 
truth. The tears of Christ were 
pledges of the love of Christ. '^Behold 
He loved him." The tears of Christ 
w^ere eloquent pledges of a deep and 
intense love. "Behold how He loved 
him." 

They were pledges, too, of a true 
love. It was not a wave of sentiment 
that surged through Christ's Heart and 
was crested by the brief foam of a few 
tears. Some of the Jews seem to have 
thought that the tears were the easy 
flow of sentiment and not the evidence 
of true affection. They objected, 
^'Could not He w^ho opened the ej^es of 
the man born blind, have caused that 
[206] 



TEARS • ATONEMENT * LOYE 

this man should not die? Why this 
useless outpour of unavailing tears? 
If this man were a real friend of Laza- 
rus, He would not have allowed him 
to die as He seemed to have power to 
keep him in life." How easy it would 
have been for these carpers to reason 
rightly! If they had said, '^The One 
who restored sight to the blind will, in 
a love proved sincere by His tears, re- 
store life to the dead," they would have 
shown more logic and more charity. 
However, in the schools of uncharitable 
criticism, no one abides by the rules of 
logic. 

Christ's love was one of sincerity and 
not of mere sentiment. If Christ's 
tears were the revelation and measure 
of a depth of love undreamt of, what 
were "the people who stand about," as 
Christ called them, to say of His deeds? 
Hypocrisy may possibly squeeze tears 
from a man's eyes, but hypocrisy will 
not roll away a tombstone, will not sum- 
mon forth the dead, will not strip oif 

[207] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

the winding bands and give to the cap- 
tive of death the freedom of life. 
Christ did all that. "Behold how He 
loved him." The testimony of deeds 
surpasses the testimony of tears. The 
evangelist does not tell us what the 
Jews said at the resurrection of La- 
zarus; he simply records: "Many 
therefore, of the Jews who had come to 
JNIary and Martha and had seen the 
things that Jesus did, believed in Him." 
Yet, even after it all, after the tears, 
after the raising of Lazarus, after the 
undoubted love of Christ shown in 
every way love can be shown, "some of 
them," continues St. John, "went to the 
Pharisees and told them the things Je- 
sus had done." In vain were Christ's 
tears for "some of them," in vain was 
this tremendous miracle, in vain the lav- 
ished love of Jesus. Many believed, 
but some went to the Pharisees. Too 
bad that Christ's tears should have left 
even one heart untouched! 

[208] 



TEARS • ATONEMENT • LOVE 

ATONEMENT 

Jesus wept at a larger tomb, and He 
wept other tears. To Him had come 
a sadder message than was sent out by 
the sisters of Bethany. It was not one 
alone who was sick or dead, but the 
message was now, ''The world Thou 
lovest is dead." Christ answered the 
message in person. He came to stand 
before the tomb wherein mankind lay 
wrapped in the winding bands of sin. 
Through life Christ had drawn nearer 
and nearer to the sealed door of that 
tomb, but it was in Gethsemane that 
He finally stood, close up to the great 
stone of God's justice that was laid 
over the sepulchre of the souls of men. 
He would on the morrow roll it away. 
He would from the Cross cry out to 
mankind, "Souls of men come forth." 
He would say to God's justice, "Loose 
them and let them go." But now He 
was pausing. His flesh was playing 
the part of Martha. It was urging the 

[209] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

cost of opening the tomb. In it was 
not one corrupting corpse, but the 
moral ofFensiveness of mankind. No 
physical delicacy of sense, cultivated by 
the exquisite care of years of refine- 
ment, can in any measure equal or even 
picture to us the extreme sensitiveness 
of Christ's virgin soul to the slightest 
scent or touch of sin. In some way or 
other, let the theologians explain how, 
Christ felt the horror of the accumu- 
lated foulness of the sins of all men, the 
unsightliness of the souls that were 
buried before Him. No language can 
equal that of Isaias, who classed the 
Redeemer with the lepers and the ac- 
cursed of God. "Surely He hath 
borne our infirmities and carried our 
sorrows; and we have thought Him, as 
it were, a leper, and as one struck by 
God and afflicted." 

What must have been the trouble in 
Christ's spirit as he faced in Gethsem- 
ane the tomb of His dead brethren, 
the sinful souls of men? Sorrow for 
[210] 



TEARS • ATONEMENT ' LOVE 

one departed friend, whose body was 
rotting away, struck at the fountain- 
head of Christ's tears, and they burst 
forth, testifying to His love. ''Behold 
how He loved him/' What will sorrow 
for many friends do with Christ? It 
will strike in further, it will reach 
greater depths of feeling and draw 
forth a stronger testimony of love. 
Prostrate before the sepulchre of the 
world, Christ freely and with full 
knowledge of what it would mean for 
Him, made the great act of contrition 
for mankind's sinfulness and allowed 
the whole ofFensiveness of every soul's 
moral death and corruption to strike 
into His very Heart. Lo, the result! 
The brimming contents of that Heart 
fled shrinking from the inner grief and 
vision out through every avenue, under 
the pressure of that horror, under the 
crushing force of the wine-press of jus- 
tice, out to the red vintage, out to the 
tears of blood. "Behold how He loved 



us." 



[211] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 
LOVE 

We are before a tomb, not a tomb of 
death or sin, but of love, and what are 
our hearts doing here? Are they giv- 
ing any testimony of love? Is there 
any trace of moisture around the dried 
up fountains of our tears? Is there 
any stirring of the depths of our hearts? 
The message has come to us, "He 
whom thou lovest, is buried,'' buried in 
the tomb of the Tabernacle, behind the 
door and veil of the sanctuary in the 
dark home of His love and choice. We 
know that message, and we have drawn 
near to the door of the tomb. 

Behind it there is no death, but life 
and the author of eternal life. Behind 
it there is no sin, but purity and the 
source of all purity. Before it should 
be the love and spirit of sacrifice which 
Christ had before the tomb of Lazarus 
and before the tomb of sin, the love and 
sacrifice which showed itself con- 
vincingly to sceptics in the powerful 
[212] 



TEARS • ATONEMENT * LOVE 

arguments of tears and blood. We 
may not be able or may not be called 
to testify to our aif ection and spirit of 
sacrifice in this way, but we are all ex- 
pected to have before the tabernacle 
some beginnings of such true feelings, 
although they may be hidden away 
from the sight of men. We may not 
have the outward evidence; we should 
have the inward reality. If not tears 
in our eyes, if not beads of blood on our 
faces, at least the warm wish and the 
generous resolution. 

Christ's love was not confined to 
tears or even to the sweat of blood; it 
went on to the stronger test of love — 
to deeds, Christ said to the Jews, 
*'Take away the stone," and to Lazarus, 
^'Lazarus, come forth." Christ said to 
God's justice, ''Take away from man- 
kind the weight of your justice," and 
to mankind, "Mankind, come forth 
from the eternal tomb of sin." In the 
first case many believed, but some went 
to the Pharisees to inform on Jesus 

[213] 



WATCHING AX HOUR 

and make His charity and miracles the 
motives for His destruction. In the 
latter case, although Christ, with a 
strong cry and with tears in the days 
of his flesh, has called the dead from 
the grave, although His blood, speak- 
ing louder than that of Abel, has sum- 
moned mankind from the sepulchre of 
sin, many have not come forth. For 
them the tears have been all in 
vain, the blood of Gethsemane and the 
Cross of Calvary have been unavailing. 
What will that sad fact mean for us be- 
fore the tabernacle? It should mean 
that we shall be more prompt to the call 
of Christ for the very reason that others 
refuse to leave the opened tomb. We 
shall love more the fullness of life and 
light because others cling to the foul- 
ness and darkness of death. "Souls of 
men, come forth." 

There is still another lesson before 
the tabernacle. Christ has put Him- 
self, as it were, in the bonds of death. 
He has buried His body and soul be- 
[214] 



TEARS • ATONEMENT • I.OYE 

neath the winding bands of bread. He 
has gone into a tomb of love upon the 
altar. But He awaits, too. His resur- 
rection. He awaits from our lips and 
our hearts the cry that went out from 
Him for Lazarus, ''Loose him and let 
him go." "Loose me," Christ says, 
"and let me go. Loose me from the 
tomb and the winding bands of my love 
and let me go to the hearts of men and 
to your hearts. I came that you may 
have life, but I cannot impart life if I 
have not freedom, if I come not forth, 
from my death on the altar to my resur- 
rection in the souls of men. Loose me 
and let me go." Behold how we shall 
best love Him. 

PRAYER 

TESUS, most loving Redeemer, 
^^ whose eyes have often been 
wet with tears for the sorrows of 
men, whose body was drenched 
with blood for the sins of men, fill 
our hearts with sincere repentance 

[215] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

that hy the saving jyorcer of thy 
precious body and blood, we may 
leave forever the dark grave of 
evil and through thy coming in 
Communion^ we may attain to the 
glory of resurrection in time and 
in eternity. 



[216] 



YOUTH, MATURITY AND AGE 

YOUTH 

HE children of the gospel! Who 
does not like them and recall their mem- 
ory gladly? You see them playing in 
the market place; you hear them sing- 
ing in the temple in praise of Christ; 
you remember them crowding in loving 
confidence around Jesus, receiving His 
tender caresses and being sanctified by 
His holy touch and blessing. How ar- 
dent the invitation of Jesus that the 
children should come to Him! How 
highly He esteemed their humility and 
simplicity ! The children were to be the 
model to correct the proud and the self- 
seekers, "Whosoever shall not receive 
the kingdom of God, as a little child, 
shall not enter into it." How solicitous 
Jesus is for the children! ''Take heed 

[217] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

that you despise not one of these httle 
ones, for I say to you that their angels 
in heaven always see the face of my 
Father who is in heaven." How 
fiercely Jesus threatens the man who 
would scandalize the little ones I "It 
were better for him that a millstone 
w^re hanged about his neck and that he 
were drowned in the depths of the sea." 
The trustful innocence of the young 
and the pure will ever be preserv^ed 
from the slightest stain of pollution, if 
their angels represent them before the 
INIajesty of God in the highest heavens 
and away do^\TL in the depths of the sea 
their scandahzers are sunk under the 
weight of a millstone. 

The loveliness of the gospel children 
is all the more beautiful when seen 
against the sad back-ground of the 
Christ Child. Xo doubt when Jesus 
gathered the little ones around Him, 
He recalled His own young days. 
Their play reminded Him of Bethle- 
hem's want and suffering; in their 
[218] 



YOUTH • MATURITY ' AGE 

songs He heard the cries of the mur- 
dered Innocents; their angels were 
companions of the angels which sent 
Him into exile and called Him back 
again; their humble docility which He 
loved and held up for admiration was a 
happy counterpart of the sad price He 
paid for a like but infinitely higher do- 
cility, Jesus was obedient to the pov- 
erty of Bethlehem with which He 
began His childhood and obedient to 
the loss of mother and foster-father, 
the most keen sorrow with which He 
closed His childhood days. 

Is it not the memory of your own 
young days that helps to make the 
children of the gospel attractive? You 
once played with light hearts and sang 
with happy voices, darkened by no 
shadows of the past, shrinking from no 
future gloom. You then saw no evil 
in others, expected no evil to come to 
you nor dreamt of doing evil to any- 
one. Your wounds healed quickly. 
Your tears showed you were not hard, 

[219] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

and their speedy drying showed you 
were not resentful. You trusted all 
because you had no experience of de- 
ception. You wei'e humble because 
you had no leisure to contemplate your 
fancied perfections. Your obedience 
came easy where no prejudices blinded 
you and no self-will made you rebel- 
lious. Surely you have not the sad 
recollections which came to Jesus when 
He looked back on His early days or 
if you have anything like His poverty, 
His martyred companions, His remote 
exile, His suffering parents, you have 
felt it all less because Jesus felt it all 
for you before and blessed it for you. 
When you go back to childhood in 
memory you cannot forget how near 
you were to the Blessed Sacrament. 
You went not to the altar as early as 
the children are now blessed in being 
allowed to go; you were not as fre- 
quently there as young and old now 
happily are, but you were docile and 
received Jesus whenever you were told ; 
[220] 



YOUTH • MATURITY • AGE 

you were innocent and so shrank not 
from the touch and blessing of Jesus 
in Communion; you were trustful and 
when the necessity of the Blessed Sac- 
rament was explained to you, you did 
not propose insincere objections or per- 
mit passions which you had not, to sug- 
gest specious excuses. The day of 
your First Communion was the chief 
event of your early life. You looked 
forward to that day with childish anx- 
iety but with childlike joy and eager- 
ness. You renewed that day again 
and again by many and many a Com- 
munion. Is all the joy of youth gone 
for you? Is not the innocence of re- 
pentance at least open to you and the 
humility of acknowledged sin and the 
obedience that has been taught by re- 
peated failures? Has not experience 
taught you the need of the Blessed Sac- 
rament? You, who in your happier 
and more confiding youth went with 
trustful love to Jesus because you were 
told that Jesus was calling you. 

[221] 



WATCHING AN HOUE 

MATURITY 

The gospels give us the history of 
mature manhood. The early years of 
Jesus are told of in four chapters and 
no more, two in St. INIatthew, two in 
St. Luke. Our knowledge of the 
child Jesus is all too scanty. It was 
not God's will to tell us more of the 
first days of Jesus although we should 
have been glad to have further infor- 
mation. The New Testament was to 
be the life of the perfect man. Three 
years is a short space in our life and 
thirty years is just the dawn of full 
manhood. The gospels tell us the 
crowded story of but three years in 
the life of Jesus and in those three years 
picture for us a model according to 
which our lives are to be regulated. 
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life 
and in His brief stay upon earth left 
us true and solid principles which will 
guide us along the paths of far more 
varied lives. You are familiar with the 
[222] 



YOUTH • MATURITY ' AGE 

main outlines of the life of Jesus. For 
thirty years He remained hidden from 
the eyes of men. Then came the time 
for His public life. He began it with 
the baptism of John and with fasting 
and prayer in the desert. He gathered 
about Him one after another a few fol- 
lowers who were to be the fishers of men. 
These He kept near Him and trained 
and sent forth to cast their nets. 
Then along the roads and across the 
lakes and up the hill-sides and through 
the towns and in the cities Jesus taught 
truths such as no man ever taught be- 
fore and in the way no man ever taught 
before and He did wonderful deeds 
such as no man before or since has done. 
His power grew and then came ene- 
mies, first in the old religion, which He 
had come to perfect and then He made 
enemies in the state officials. They did 
not understand that a new kingdom 
not of this world, not of the sword, 
was beginning. The time was short. 
Events moved rapidly to a crisis. The 

[223] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

religious leaders and civil leaders united 
their forces. Jesus had won over the 
people but their allegiance was weak. 
The work of three years was appar- 
ently undone in as many days. Jesus 
was captured, unjustly condemned and 
crucified. His enemies had triumphed 
but their triumph was of short dura- 
tion. Jesus rose from the dead 
strengthened His followers by the gift 
of the Holy Spirit and sent them forth 
to win the world to Him. 

Your lives are to be built upon the 
life of Jesus and you will have Jesus 
living in the tabernacle to help you in 
every stage of the process. You have 
your years of childhood and preparation 
for work. During that time you will 
be hidden with Jesus, hidden and grow- 
ing by His help in wisdom, age and 
grace. When God's call comes to you, 
it will be before the Blessed Sacrament 
that you will receive it or pray over it. 
Jesus will bless the work which God 
gives you to do. Jesus will strengthen 
[224] 



YOUTH • MATURITY * AGE 

you to perform it. You will go forth 
to your life's work, whatever it may be, 
and will begin humbly and will gradu- 
ally do better. You will see from your 
model that you are expected to labor 
incessantly, to improve yourselves in 
every way. Difficulties will come and 
you will meet them bravely. At such 
times you will retire to prayer as Jesus 
did and you will be found kneeling be- 
fore the altar. The more important 
undertakings of your lives will call for 
greater deliberation and longer prayer. 
Taking up a profession, engaging in a 
new business undertaking, adopting a 
higher vocation or entering upon an- 
other state of life, you will come closer 
to the Blessed Sacrament, making a 
retreat and being more fervent and fre- 
quent at Communion. Thus you will 
resemble Jesus who spent whole nights 
in prayer as on the occasion when He 
was to choose His apostles. You may 
be destined to meet with failure; you 
surely must some day face death. In 

[225] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

either case like Jesus you will go from 
the Last Supper to the last Agony, 
from the Eucharist to Calvary. So 
your lives will advance from perfection 
to perfection fulfilling in each stage, as 
Jesus did, the holy will of God, and 
finding in each part of it your necessary 
strength and your cheering comfort in 
the Blessed Sacrament. The maturity 
of your lives will be reproductions of 
the life of Jesus and the best fruit of 
His sacred body and blood. 

AGE 

Are you already old or are you now 
in the prime of life but looking forward 
to the coming of age? It well may be 
that unlike the foolish man in the gos- 
pels, without presumption or trust in 
self but humbly and with trust in God, 
you await the years of age. Pray that 
you may grow old without great pain and 
without great helplessness. It is a trial, 
almost a torture, for some to see that 
after years of activity and of vigorous, 
[226]^ 



YOUTH • MATURITY • AGE 

exuberant health, they have become a 
care to others. Will that humiliation 
find you patient or fretful? Will you 
grow old like some floors which wear 
into sharp, aggressive splinters or 
rather will you not be gathered to God 
in an old age like the harvest and 
sweetened to mellowness like the fruits 
of autumn? Should, however, it be 
God's will that you suif er the weakness 
of old age as the man in the gospel who 
''had been for eight and thirty years 
under his infirmity,'' then we shall all 
pray that you as he may at the end meet 
Jesus coming, if not to make you walk 
again with this life's health, at least to 
arise to Him with the happiness of 
eternal life. Neither will you grow old, 
we pray, in selfishness. The mother of 
James and John did not indeed look 
for herself when she begged Jesus to 
give her sons posts of honor, yet she 
learned from Jesus a still higher un- 
selfishness and gained that necessary 
virtue for the old, patient resignation 

[227] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

to the will of God, by Whom all things 
are regulated. When the mother of 
the sons of Zebedee stood by the cross 
of Jesus, she showed she had acquired 
the highest unselfishness and saw her 
son given a higher position even than 
she had asked for him. John was ap- 
pointed to take the place of Jesus to- 
wards Mary, His ^Mother. 

But do not think of the old who came 
to Jesus in weakness or imperfection; 
think rather of those who grew old in 
the temple and before God. Such as 
Anna who after seven years of married 
life ''was a widow until fourscore and 
four years, who departed not from the 
temple, by fastings and prayers, serv- 
ing night and day." Such too in the 
holiness of age was Simeon. ''This 
man was just and devout, waiting for 
the consolation of Israel and he had 
received an answer from the Holy 
Ghost that he should not see death be- 
fore he had seen the Christ of the 
Lord." Both of these holy souls had 
[228] 



YOUTH • MATURITY * AGE 

grown old in the service of God. They 
had not the real presence of God per- 
petually with them in their temple as 
we have. They rejoiced and felt them- 
selves fully rewarded for many years 
for God, simply because they had seen 
Jesus. Simeon was ready to die when 
he took Jesus in his arms. Anna gave 
praise to God and spoke of Jesus far 
and wide. Think of them when you 
grow old. Think of them on some quiet 
evening when you find yourself before 
the tabernacle of Jesus. As the light of 
day is fading from the Church and you 
can see nothing, you will feel that it is 
twilight with you in your old age. The 
light is going. Friends and relatives 
one after another have departed. The 
light of many loving eyes shines no more 
for you and the smiles of many dear 
ones beam no more upon you. You are 
left alone. Your trembling fingers 
clasp your worn beads and cling to them 
as though you were abandoned on the 
wide seas and caught helplessly as at 

[229] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

some floating fragment. Look up in 
that lonely hour and know if all lights 
shall fade, one will never gi'ow dim or 
fail you. If the darkness of the night 
and many years settles thick about you 
and hides everything from you, the light 
of the altar will be there to fill your 
faded eyes and make your wearied heart 
leap with joy. Anna and Simeon were 
happy because they had one glance of 
the Child Jesus. Simeon took Jesus in 
his arms for a few moments and then 
was willing to die. Peace had come to 
him. So peace comes to you. You 
have seen Jesus not once only but many, 
many times. You have not been 
blessed by one loving touch of His holy 
person but again and again He has 
come into your heart. You have grown 
old in His service and the hght of His 
peace floods your heart. Though all 
are gone, yet is Jesus not gone, and He 
will come once more to you in a far 
more loving way than to Simeon and 
then you will say after your last Com- 
[230] 



YOUTH • MATURITY • AGE 

munion: ''Now thou dost dismiss thy 
servant, O Lord, according to thy word 
in peace." 

PRAYER 

CIUFFER us, good Jesus, as 
^^ little ones, to come unto 
thee; teach and guide us in all the 
words and works of our maturer 
years, and when it is towards even- 
ing, stay with us; that fed upon 
the bread of the children we may 
increase unto the measure of the 
age of thy fullness and so after 
the labors of life may be dismissed 
in peace, like holy Simeon, to the 
kingdom of God. 



[231] 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX I 

THE NATURE OF THE HOLY HOUR 
AND ITS INDULGENCES 

There are three practices of the Holy 
Hour specially authorized and indul- 
genced by the Church. The first is 
wholly Eucharistic and is made in pub- 
lic or private for one hour on Holy 
Thursday, Corpus Christi and any 
Thursday of the year in commemora- 
tion of the institution of the Blessed 
Sacrament. Any pious exercise during 
the hour (meditation, vocal prayers, 
etc.) suffices for the indulgences. The 
indulgences are: 1. Plenary for Holy 
Thursday with Confession and Com- 
munion on the day or during the week 
following; 2. Plenary for Corpus 
Christi on the same conditions; 
3. Three Hundred Days every Thurs- 
day of the year. (Beringer: Les 

[235] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Indulgences, French authorized trans- 
lation, 1905, Vol. I, 371.) Many as- 
sociations of the Church practise such 
a Holy Plour in honor of the Blessed 
Sacrament. Among them may be 
mentioned the Archconfraternity of 
the Most Blessed Sacrament (Ber- 
INGER II, 128), the Archconfraternity 
of Perpetual Adoration {ibid. 130, 
133), The Association of Priest 
Adorers {ibid. 452), the Priests' Eu- 
charistic League. The Archconfra- 
ternity of the Eucharistic Heart of 
Jesus {ibid. 480) prescribes half an 
hour weekly. All of these devotions 
are indulgenced for the members of 
such societies if the conditions required 
in each case are complied with. 

The second kind of Holy Hour was 
instituted in accordance with a revela- 
tion related by Blessed INIargaret Mary. 
It consists of an hour of prayer in union 
with the Agony of our Lord in the 
Garden in order to appease the anger 
of God and to win graces for sinners. 
[236] 



NATURE OF THE HOLY HOUR 

This hour is made by members of the 
Archconfraternity of the Holy Hour, 
an organization founded by Father 
Debrosse, S. J., at Paray-Le-Monial. 
It has been approved of and extended 
by different popes, and in 1911 the 
Archconfraternity at Paray-Le-Monial 
was empowered to aggregate confra- 
ternities anywhere in the world. In 
order to gain the indulgences members 
must have their names inscribed on an 
official register. In the case of all re- 
ligious communities, it is sufficient to 
have the community itself inscribed once 
for all. To gain the plenary indul- 
gence granted on each occasion, with 
the usual conditions, the members must 
pray for any hour from Thursday after- 
noon to Friday morning in union with 
Jesus in agony, for the purpose of ap- 
peasing God's wrath against sin and 
in reparation for sinners. This Holy 
Hour is concerned with the Passion 
rather than with the Blessed Sacrament. 
(Beringer: Vol. II, 144.) 

[237] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

The third Holy Hour is an extension 
of this second one. First every in- 
dividual member of the Apostleship of 
Prayer may gain the plenary indul- 
gence granted to the members of the 
Confraternity of the Holy Hour with- 
out being registered in that Confra- 
ternity provided he fulfills the condi- 
tions, namely an hour of meditation or 
vocal prayer on the Passion at the time 
designated, with Confession and Com- 
munion. Secondly, this privilege was 
further extended in 1875 by Leo XIII, 
and members of the Apostleship who 
practise the Hour in common, may now 
make it on any day or hour once in a 
week. (Beringer: Vol. II, 202.) 
In this rescript occur the following 
words: ''It has been reported to us 
that many of the Associates of the said 
Apostleship, called together by the 
directors according to the statutes of 
the League are wont to assemble on 
certain hours and days in churches or 
chapels to perform in honor of the Most 
[238] 



NATURE OF THE HOLY HOUR 

Sacred Heart of Jesus or of the August 
Sacrament of the Altar, the pious exer- 
cises of adoration and reparation be- 
longing to the devotion of the Holy 
Hour." The words here cited do not 
restrict the prayers and meditations to 
the Passion alone but include exercises 
in honor of the Sacred Heart and the 
Blessed Sacrament. Such would seem 
to be the general custom now. The 
Holy Hour which was originally con- 
cerned wdth the Agony in the Garden 
has grown to comprehend all the Pas- 
sion, the Sacred Heart and the Holy 
Eucharist. In practice the faithful 
should be recommended to entertain 
thoughts of sympathy with Christ suf- 
fering, of hatred for sin, of reparation 
to Christ for the ingratitude and indif- 
ference of mankind. 



[239] 



APPENDIX II 

ORDER OF EXERCISES FOR THE 
HOLY HOUR 

There is no fixed way of practising the de- 
votion. The following is suggested as suitable. 
By "Meditation Prayer'* is meant the short 
prayer printed in this book at the end of the 
third point. After each point several minutes 
should be spent in thinking over the truths just 
explained, in silent prayer upon them and in 
practical applications to the needs of each one. 
This is called here ''Reflection." Several **Vocal 
Prayers" are given, any or all of which may be 
recited as time and devotion demand. The 
choice of the "Hymns" is left to the pious tastes 
of those in charge. Hymns on the Blessed 
Sacrament, Sacred Heart and Passion are most 
in keeping with the devotion. All the prayers 
except the "Meditation Prayer" are taken from 
the Raccolta and are indulgenced. 



[240] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

FIRST QUARTER 
1 Opening Prayer 

"Jesus, my God, my Saviour, with 
that lowly homage with which faith in- 
spires me, I worship thee, true God and 
true man; with my whole heart I love 
thee, enclosed in the most august sacra- 
ment of the altar, in reparation for all 
the acts of irreverence, profanation, 
and sacrilege, which, to my shame, I 
may ever have committed, as well as for 
those which have ever been committed, 
or ever may be committed in ages yet 
to come. 

I adore thee, my God, not indeed as 
much as thou deservest, or as much as 
I ought, but according to the little 
strength I have ; and fain would I adore 
thee with all the perfection of every 
rational creature. Meantime, I pur- 
pose, now and forever, to adore thee, 
not only for those Catholics who adore 
thee not and love thee not, but also for 
the conversion of all heretics, schis- 

[241] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

niatics, Mahometans, Jews, idolaters, 
and wicked Christians. Ah! my Jesus, 
may all men ever know, adore, love 
and praise thee, every moment, in the 
most holy and most divine sacrament! 
Amen. 

1 adore thee at every moment, O 
living bread of heaven, great sacra- 
ment ! 

Jesus, Son of Mary, I pray you, 
bless my soul. 

Holiest Jesus, my Saviour, I give 
thee my heart." 200 days. 

2 First Point 

3 Meditation Prayer 

4 Re flection 

5 Vocal Prayers 

''Divine Jesus, incarnate Son of God, 
who for our salvation didst vouchsafe 
to be born in a stable, to pass thy life 
in poverty, trials and misery, and to 
die amid the sufferings of the cross, I 
[242] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

entreat thee, say to thy divine Father 
at the hour of my death: Father, for- 
give him; say to thy beloved mother: 
Behold thy Son; say to my soul: This 
day thou shalt be with me in paradise. 
My God, my God, forsake me not in 
that hour. I thirst: yes, my God, my 
soul thirsts after thee, who art the foun- 
tain of living waters. My life passes 
like a shadow ; yet a little while, and all 
will be consummated. Wherefore, O 
my adorable Saviour! from this mo- 
ment, for all eternity, into thy hands 
I commend my spirit. Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my soul. Amen.'' 300 days. 

''O most compassionate Jesus! thou 
alone art our salvation, our life, and our 
resurrection. We implore thee, there- 
fore, do not forsake us in our needs and 
afflictions, but, by the agony of thy most 
sacred Heart, and by the sorrows of 
thy immaculate mother, aid thy serv- 
ants whom thou hast redeemed by thy 
most precious blood.'' 100 days. 

[243] 



AVATCHING AN HOUR 

''Look down, O Lord, from thy 
sanctuary, and from heaven, thy dwell- 
ing place, and behold this holy Victim 
which our great high-priest, thy holy 
Child, the Lord Jesus, offers up to 
thee for the sins of his brethren; and let 
not thy wrath be kindled because of the 
multitude of our transgressions. Be- 
hold the voice of the blood of Jesius, our 
brother, calls to thee from the cross. 
Give ear, O Lord! be appeased, O 
Lord ! hearken, and tarry not, for thine 
own sake, O my God, because thy 
name is called upon in behalf of this 
city and of thy people; but deal with 
us according to thy great mercy. 
Amen. 

That thou vouchsafe to defend, 
pacify, keep, preserve, and bless this 
city. 

We beseech thee to hear us." 100 
days. 

6 Hymn to the Blessed Sacrament. 
[244] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

SECOND QUARTER 
1 Opening Prayer 

"Dear Jesus, in the sacrament of the 
altar, be forever thanked and praised. 
Love, worthy of all celestial and ter- 
restrial love! who, out of infinite love 
for me, ungrateful sinner, didst assume 
our human nature, didst shed thy most 
precious blood in the cruel scourging, 
and didst expire on a shameful cross 
for our eternal welfare! Now, illu- 
mined with lively faith, with the out- 
pouring of my whole soul and the fer- 
vor of my heart, I humbly beseech thee, 
through the infinite merits of thy pain- 
ful sufferings, give me strength and 
courage to destroy every evil passion 
which sways my heart, to bless thee in 
my greatest afflictions, to glorify thee 
by the exact fulfilment of all my duties, 
supremely to hate all sin, and thus to 
become a saint." 100 days. 



[245] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

2 Second Point 

3 Meditation Prayer 

4 Reflection 

5 Vocal Prayers 

''Most merciful Jesus, lover of souls! 
I pray thee, by the agony of thy most 
sacred Heart, and by the sorrows of 
thy immaculate mother, wash in thy 
blood the sinners of the whole world 
who are now in their agony, and are to 
die this day. Amen. 

Heart of Jesus, once in agony, pity 
the dying." 100 days. 

''O Lord Jesus Christ, in union with 
that divine intention with which thou, 
whilst on earth, didst give praise to God 
through thy most sacred Heart, and 
which thou dost still everj^vhere offer 
to him in the Holy Eucharist, even to 
the consummation of the world; I, in 
imitation of the most sacred heart of 
the ever immaculate Virgin INIary, do 
[246] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

inost cheerfully offer to thee, during 
this entire day, all my thoughts and in- 
tentions, all my affections and desires, 
my words and all my works/' 100 
days. 

''Our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus 
Christ, worthy of all love, who, in the 
impenetrable designs of thy infinite 
wisdom, hast borne with the boldness of 
the impious and the invasion of in- 
iquity, reserving to thyself the sover- 
eign right to judge the impious and 
his perverse works, mercifully turn thy 
looks toward thy children who in the 
blindness of their heart have rebelled 
against thee. With the eye of a 
Father and with the power of Supreme 
King of the universe, stretch forth thy 
beneficent and regenerating hand to- 
ward modern society which rebelliously 
turns its back upon thee. King of kings. 
Lord of lords. Stir up thy pity in 
favor of thy people which thou hast 
ransomed with thy blood, regenerated 

[247] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

by thy grace, exalted through thy love. 
Thou didst bestow upon it true hberty, 
thou hast called it to the heritage of thy 
Father and to brotherhood with thy- 
self ; but in the madness of its rebellion 
it has preferred the bondage of Satan, 
and now lives in abject slavery, un- 
happy in its hopelessness. 

Jesus Christ, our Lord, King of 
eternal glory, restorer of all things in 
heaven and on earth, almighty ruler, 
who with infinite wisdom hast brought 
together at thy feet what was scattered 
abroad, enlighten the kings of the earth, 
the rulers of the nations, cause thy^ spirit 
to permeate all civil institutions, all 
governments of every kind, the laws, 
the armies; grant that all authorities 
on earth may acknowledge in thee the 
majesty of the eternal God, the prin- 
ciple from which all authority is de- 
rived ; enlighten all peoples in order that 
they may know that thou art the source 
of all right and all duty, that by thee 
[248] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

all kings of earth command and to thee 
kings and peoples owe obedience. 

O most lovable Jesus, who didst 
vouchsafe to come down into this vale 
of tears, and to dwell with us, to suffer 
and die to save us sinners, and who 
through an excess of charity hast fixed 
thy dwelling-place among men, hidden 
under the sacramental species, and with 
the fulness of the godhead bodily pres- 
ent in our tabernacles, makest thy- 
self the food and life of our souls, O 
deign to accept the humble but sincere 
and deep homage of our hearts as an 
atonement for the disloyalty of the re- 
bellious. We believe thee firmly, as 
thou hast been revealed to us through 
the faith which the Holy Ghost has in- 
fused into our hearts, we acknowledge 
thee as the beginning and the end of 
all things that exist, we adore thee as 
the true and only God, we have no will 
to live but for thee and to serve thee 
only. But do thou, O Lord, save our 

[249] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

brethren, bring together again the scat- 
tered members of human society which 
in these latter days have gone astray, 
so that we all, as brothers, may be one 
with thee, as thou art one with thy 
Father wlio is in heaven. ^lay thy wdll 
be done by all and in all things; may 
thy majesty shine forth in splendor on 
the throne on which thou reignest over 
human society, and may the world ac- 
knowledge thee to be the true Son of 
God, by whom all things were created. 

O Jesus, God of love, break the fet- 
ters that bind thy vicar, the successor 
of Peter, restore him to the possession 
of that liberty which thou thyself didst 
give to him together wath the keys of 
supreme jurisdiction, in order that he 
may carry on efficaciously thy work of 
regenerating human society, and that 
the coming of that day may be hastened, 
the day we long to behold, when thou 
shalt be glorified by the return of human 
society to its Father's house; do thou, 
King of all peoples, gather together the 
[250] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

sheep and the lambs under the care of 
the one Shepherd. Forsake us not, O 
Lord ; we are thy children, we love thee ; 
acknowledge us still as thy children; 
unworthy indeed, but yet always thy 
children; save us, and along with us 
save all kings, governments and nations. 
Amen." 300 days once a day; seven 
years and seven quarantines on Thurs- 
day; plenary on Corpus Christi on the 
usual conditions. 

6 Hymn for the Passion 

THIRD QUARTER 

1 Opening Prayer 

''Look down upon me, good and 
gentle Jesus, while before thy face I 
humbly kneel, and with burning soul 
pray and beseech thee to fix deep in my 
heart lively sentiments of faith, hope, 
and charity, true contrition for my sins, 
and a firm purpose of amendment; the 
while I contemplate with great love and 
tender pity thy five wounds, pondering 

[251] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

over them within me, whilst I call to 
mind what the Prophet David put in 
Thy mouth concerning Thee, O good 
Jesus: 'They have pierced my hands 
and my feet; they have numbered all 
my bones.' " Plenary on usual condi- 
tions, if recited before a crucifix or its 
picture. 

2 Third Point 

3 Meditation Prayer 

4 Reflection 

5 Vocal Prayers 

"Heart of Mary, mother of God, our 
mother; heart most amiable, delight of 
the ever-adorable Trinity, and worthy 
of all the veneration and tenderness of 
angels and of men; heart most like the 
Heart of Jesus, whose most perfect im- 
age thou art; heart full of goodness, 
ever compassionate toward our mis- 
eries! vouchsafe to thaw our icy hearts, 
and change them to the likeness of the 
[252] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

Heart of Jesus. Infuse into them the 
love of thy virtues, inflame them with 
that blessed fire with which thou dost 
ever burn. In thee let the holy Church 
find safe shelter; be thou its guardian 
and its ever-sweet asylum, its tower of 
strength, impregnable against the as- 
saults of its enemies. Be thou the road 
leading to Jesus; be thou the channel 
whereby we receive all graces needful 
for our salvation. Be thou our help in 
need, our comfort in trouble, our 
strength in temptation, our refuge in 
persecution, our aid in danger; but es- 
pecially in the last struggle of our life, 
at the moment of our death, when all 
hell shall be unchained against us to 
snatch away our souls, in that dread 
moment, that hour so terrible, on which 
depends our eternity — ah! then, most 
tender Virgin, do thou make us feel how 
great is the sweetness of thy mother's 
heart, how great thy power with the 
Heart of Jesus, opening to us, in the 
very fount of mercy itself, a safe refuge, 

[253] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

that so one day we too may join with 
thee in paradise in praising the Heart 
of Jesus forever and forever. Amen. 

May the divine Heart of Jesus and 
the immaculate heart of ^lary be 
known, praised, loved, worshipped, and 
glorified always and in all places. 
Amen." 60 days. 



Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist, 
sweet companion of our exile, I adore 
thee. 

Eucharistic Heart of Jesus: 
Solitary" Heart, humiliated Heart: 
Abandoned Heart, forgotten Heart: 
Despised Heart, outraged Heart: 
Heart unknown by men: 
Heart loving our hearts: 
Heart desiring to be loved : 
Heart impatient, waiting for us: 
Heart eager to grant our requests: 
Heart desirous of being besought: 
Heart source of new graces: 
[254] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

Silent Heart, wishing to speak to our 
souls : 

Heart, sweet refuge of the hidden 
life: 

Heart teaching the secrets of divine 
union : 

Heart of Him who sleeps yet ever 
watches : 

Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, have 
mercy on us. 

Jesus, victim! I wish to console thee: 

To unite myself to thee : 

To immolate myself with thee: 

To annihilate myself before thee: 

To be forgotten and despised for love 
of thee — 

Not to be loved or understood save 
only by thee : 

I will be silent to listen to thee — 

I will leave myself, to lose myself in 
thee. 

Grant that I may thus quench thy 
thirst, for my salvation and sanctifica- 
tion, and that, purified, I may oif er thee 
a pure and true love. 

[255] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

I will no longer weary thy patience; 
take me, I give myself to thee. 

I offer thee all my actions ; my mind, 
that thou mayest illuminate it; my 
heart, that thou mayest direct it; my 
will, that thou mayest render it firm; 
my misery, that thou mayest succor it; 
my soul and my body, that thou may- 
est nourish them. 

Eucharistic Heart of my Jesus, 
whose blood is the life of my soul, I will 
no longer live, but live thou alone in 
me. Amen. 

II 

Jesus! Adorable Saviour, hidden in 
the sacrament of thy love, dwelling 
amongst us to sweeten our exile, shall I 
not exert myself to console thee? Shall 
I not offer thee my heart, since thou 
hast given me thine ? It is true, that to 
give myself to thee is for my own ad- 
vantage; it is to find the inestimable 
treasure of a loving, disinterested, f aith- 
[256] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

f ul Heart, such as I would wish my own 
to be. Thus I, who can give nothing, 
am always receiving. Lord, I cannot 
rival thee in generosity, but I love thee ; 
deign to accept my poor heart, and al- 
though it is worth nothing, still it may 
be made something by thy grace. 
Since it loves thee, do thou make it good 
for something and keep it. Eucharis- 
tic Heart of Jesus ! I consecrate to thee 
all the faculties of my soul; all the 
powers of my body. I wish to en- 
deavor to know and love thee ever more 
and more, to make thee better known 
and loved by others. I wish to labor 
only for thy glory; and to do only that 
which thy Father wills. I consecrate 
to thee all the moments of my life in a 
spirit of adoration before thy royal 
presence; of thanksgiving for this in- 
comparable gift; in reparation for our 
cruel indifference ; and in incessant sup- 
plication, that our prayers may be of- 
fered to thee, with thee and in thee, 

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WATCHING AN HOUR 

may ascend purified and fruitful to the 
throne of God's mercy and for his 
eternal glory. Amen. 

Ill 

Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, burning 
with love for us, inflame our hearts with 
love for thee. 

IV 

Eucharistic Heart of my God, breath- 
ing and palpitating beneath the veils of 
the most sacred species, I adore thee. 
]\Ioved by a new love in the presence 
of the immense benefits of the divine 
Eucharist, penetrated with regret at my 
own ingratitude, I humbly annihilate 
myself in the still greater abyss of thy 
mercies. Thou hast chosen me from 
my youth; thou hast not disdained my 
infirmity; descending into my poor 
heart, thou didst come to invite it to a 
mutual love, giving happiness and 
peace. And I lost all because I was 
unfaithful to thee, O my Jesus. I al- 
[258] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

lowed my mind to become distracted 
and my heart to become cold ; I listened 
to myself and I forgot thee. Thou 
didst wish to be my guide, my coun- 
cillor, the protector of my life, and I, 
allowing my passions to smother this 
sweet attraction, lost sight of thee and 
forgot thee. In the salutary pains of 
trial, in the joys of consolation, in my 
difficulties and my necessities, instead 
of having recourse to thee, I sought 
creatures and forgot thee. I forgot 
thee in the beloved tabernacles wherein 
thy love languishes; in the churches of 
the city wherein thou art insulted; in 
sacrilegious and indifferent hearts ; and 
in my own guilty one, O Jesus, even be- 
fore and after having received thee. 
Eucharistic Heart of my Saviour, the 
delight of my first communion and 
during the days of my fidelity, I sur- 
render myself to thee. Come back, 
come back, and draw me anew to thy- 
self. Pardon me once more, and I will 
expiate all by the strength of my love. 

[259] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

Glorious archangel S. jNIichael, and 
you beloved S. John, offer my repara- 
tion to Jesus and be propitious to me. 
Amen. 200 days. 

6 Hymn to the Sacred Heart 

7 Act of Consecration to the 

Sacred Heart 

"I, N. N., give and consecrate to the 
Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ my person 
and my life, all my actions, pains and 
sufferings, resolved on not using any 
portion of my own self but for his 
honor, love and glory. 

]My irrevocable determination is to be 
entirely his, and to do everything for his 
love, renouncing with all my heart any 
act that may displease him. 

I do choose you, O most Sacred 
Heart, for the only object of my love, 
the protector of my life, the security of 
my salvation, the safeguard against my 
frailty and fickleness, the reparation for 
[260] 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 

my delinquencies in life, and my most 
secure refuge in the hour of death. 

Be yourself, O bountiful Heart, my 
justification before your Divine Father, 
and defend me from the dread of his 
just wrath. O most loving Heart, I 
place all my trust in you, for I am 
afraid of my own malice and weakness, 
but all my hope rests with your mercy. 

Destroy, then, in me whatever may 
displease you or resist you; would that 
the pure love of you be so deeply im- 
printed in my heart that I could never 
forsake you or be separated from you. 

I beseech you, by all your mercies to- 
wards me, that my name may be written 
in you ; since I crave but one thing, that 
all my happiness and glory may be to 
live and to die as your most humble 
servant. Amen. 300 days. 



[261] 



WATCHING AN HOUR 

FOURTH QUARTER 

Benediction of the Blessed 
Sacrament 

or 

Rosary (Sorrowful Mysteries) 

WITH Litany of the Sacred 

Heart or the Holy Name 

{if desired). 



[262] 



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